Phases
by Darth Krande
Summary: What good is a phase-sixer with his stand-down code in Autobot hands? What good is misplaced trust, what good is respect against loyalty? What good is ununtrium coating, if the spark is broken?
1. Phase 1

**Phases**

**Phase one – the value of intelligence**

"Just to let you know, Optimus" Blaster warned his leader "I don't assume he will like it. I mean, that code was not intended to be changed easily."

The blue helm rose from between red shoulders as Optimus Prime transformed and looked up to the distant mountain range. Somewhere over there was a Decepticon hiding, awaiting Megatron's command to attack the Autobot group.

"I understand" he said, almost in a murmur of shame. He hoped he wouldn't be pushed as far as to order the hacking of a sentient Cybertronian. It was one more step from his ideals. "Proceed, Blaster. Change his code."

Blaster's first attack set off a massive alarm throughout the Decepticon's complex processing system. The second swept through his firewalls, and just five astroseconds from the start he got to the deepest core programming of the other mech. A few more astroseconds, and he started the overwriting process.

Once he aired the middle sequence of the code, Blaster had full access to the Decepticon's processor. He experienced no resistance. This was alarming: he was working on an area that not even the victim could reach into. Which was somewhat the point of it being created, but Blaster felt as if he was violating a very personal set of files. He wouldn't have done this, if not for Ratchet's sake.

"He is in pain" he murmured, as if saying it out loud would take some of the responsibility off his shoulders. "I can tell that much from here."

Beside him, Optimus nodded, sharing the guilt and taking the responsibility as much as he could. "Then hurry up and try to do it as fast as possible."

Under any other circumstances, he wouldn't have spoken those words. He would have possibly had to face Sixshot in battle, like he had done it before, (and didn't that have to do with saving Ratchet, too?) but taking advantage of a built-in failsafe just seemed to be the only possible solution right now. He couldn't help but swallow a few comments on his call. Once in a lifetime Megatron took precautions before coming up with some nasty, destructive, sparkless plan – and he, Optimus Prime, was taking advantage of it. He had just ordered Blaster to change the shut-down code of Megatron's greatest walking firepower – the destroyer known as Sixshot.

"Almost there" Blaster whispered, as if that could ease the pain of being hacked. They had been knowingly torturing the Decepticon warrior for almost a minute now. Optimus buried his face in his hands.

It was Mirage who came up with the plan, and the one who brought the data from Megatron's reconstructing facility deep below the ground level of Helex. According to the Autobot spy's impression, the place was a lot like how Earth inhabitants pictured Hell. And this was the place from which Sixshot had originated – the place where he was rebuilt into a phase-sixer, at least.

According to the well-guarded layouts, Sixshot's shut-down mechanism was literally burnt into his brain module. The code that initiated it, however, was not fixed into the hardware. Megatron was not going to share his greatest weapons with some low-ranking techies, after all. Only he and his top-ranking officers could switch off the destroyer with a verbal command.

Blaster's speakers were coruscating with heat when he finally eased down. He dropped his arms that were holding his boosters. His job was done. "He's ours" he muttered. "I hate to say it, but he's ours. Let's go and find him."

Optimus looked up at the cloudless sky and the forest in the hillside.

"Come, Blaster. And thank you."

The red truck rolled through the barely inhabited plains and an almost deserted human village. Those who lived here had long ago got used to seeing various vehicles driving themselves around the area. Optimus wondered how much they truly understood of the war between Decepticons and Autobots. He supposed that most of those who knew enough had moved to more peaceful places on this beautiful world. But, with a phase-sixer around, he wondered if there was any place for them to hide, really.

"Turn right" Blaster suggested. "That crooked road will take us to the foot of the mountain. From there, we will have to walk."

Their prey was easy to find. There was a clearing in the middle of the lush forest, where trees were cut in half or burnt by uncontrolled energy. Among the broken trunks, a large, half-conscious Decepticon was sitting. He seemed to be staring at a white stone in front of himself, waiting for the horrible headache to ease from his systems. But in the next moment, he jumped up and pointed his weaponry at the Prime. If his processing capacity had recovered normal functions, maybe he would have not attacked the very mechs who possessed his new stand-down codes. He fell gracelessly on his side.

"At least we have proof it works" Blaster said.

"I didn't intend to test like this" Optimus stated.

A complex but not quite pretty collection of battle-hardened metal that could take six different forms was lying in front of them. Blaster cautiously walked closer to the offline mech. He looked into darkened gray optics on a shiny white face, then, after a hesitant blink at Optimus and an approving nod from his leader, he peered into the mind of the mechanism who was said to be covered in a metal retrieved from a collapsed star.

For Blaster, reading him in this stage via hardline connection was much like viewing files on a sparkless computer. For a few seconds he wondered if the destroyer had no personality at all – then, when he had found it, he was astonished at its complexity. The mech was truly more than meets the eye.

What a truism, Ramhorn commented from inside his chest. Even truisms can be true, Rewind objected. Eject noted that, despite being repurposed for the completely opposite, Sixshot seemed to have a hidden sense for fair play. Steeljaw insisted that Blaster copied everything he found for later analysis as fast as he could, since the phase-sixer carried invaluable information of Decepticon strategies.

Blaster ignored them all and looked deeper. He wanted to know how the sixformer really worked. It was essential for the Autobots to find out how to control him, as having the shut-down code in itself didn't grant the big robot's cooperation on the short term, and wouldn't have prevented Soundwave from possibly hacking him free on the long run. But as soon as the warm-colored carrier reached into the confidential territory, Sixshot started to boot up. Blaster quickly retreated from his proximity.

For long minutes, the Decepticon's optics were dark. Then, very slowly, red light started flickering across the white face, and ventilator fans kicked in one after the other. This time, it was Optimus who ventured closer to him. The large pile of metal did not move an inch. The Prime knelt down to look the motionless one-mech-army in the optics, and he wasn't sure if he had not seen a flash of evil on the metallic beast. But maybe it was just a few rays of the slowly setting sun, and the shadows of the many leaves. He registered no movement. He walked back to Blaster, clueless what he should do now. They would need to move the Decepticon somehow. He wasn't sure where to hide a huge pile of destruction until the exchange, either. The Ark's brig was out of question.

Again, he had one more reason to wish Ratchet were here with them. But then he wouldn't have to worry about where to keep Sixshot, either. He turned his back at the living weapon, but not even that had provoked another attack.

"Steelie thinks he's just waiting for your permission to move" Blaster said.

Optimus gave a curious look.

"Well, you are the one who took him down, aren't you? You are supposed to be his superior."

Optimus muttered something very un-Prime-like about NOT having taken that position from Megatron. Blaster shrugged. Optimus gave a sigh, and spoke up.

"Come here, Sixshot." His words were calm, serious, just a tiny bit commanding. He was almost sure the mech wouldn't respond to him, but he gave it a try.

He was shocked at the speed with which the white, teal and dark gray pile of destruction picked himself up from the ground, and hurried to him. He kept a respectful distance, however. Cybertronian protocol demanded that two Transformers normally stood just as far from each other that they had enough space between them for them to turn into alternate mode. Optimus didn't fail to notice that Sixshot kept the distance so that he could easily take his semitruck form – but he was way too close for taking any of his own, destructive shapes. Their optics met, and the sixformer dropped to one knee.

The Autobot was careful not to misinterpret this motion like a human would. This wasn't a surrender, Sixshot had only brought himself to optic level with him. The Prime had also used this position when he was talking to smaller beings. Especially those fragile creatures whom he didn't suppose to like being picked up.

Optimus Prime, still keeping the distance the Decepticon chose, produced a cube of Energon from his subspace. It was cybertronium-enriched midgrade, because Ratchet had insisted that he always carried a dose of that with him.

Ratchet...

"Do you accept it?" he asked, offering the cube to his defeated enemy. Sixshot blinked at the energon, a pink cube with shimmers of bright green. Then, immediately, back to Optimus. And Blaster.

Blaster took a step backwards, pretending not to be there. He had done what was asked of him, from now on, he wanted to be left out of handling a Decepticon phase-sixer.

Sixshot understood the gesture and considered himself to be left alone with the Autobot leader. He accepted the cube, and retracted his mouthplate for the first bite. He took in the scent of recently brewed fuel and the unmistakable smell of their home. After one tentative sip and a smile he had no control over, he downed the whole dose in one large gulp. He released his mask back to its standard position immediately afterwards.

"I apologize for having violated your most basic rights, Sixshot" Optimus started. Blaster gave a quiet harrumph in the background. His leader's words meant that he took all responsibility for the hacking, as if the communication specialist hadn't even been there. He valued himself more than that. It didn't sit right with him to let Optimus take all the blame. "I wouldn't have agreed to such profound hack under any other circumstances. We are in a dire situation. Our friend and best medic has been kidnapped by Astrotrain and Shockwave. Considering these two rarely cooperate, we suppose he was taken under Megatron's command. I seek a prisoner exchange, and I hope to make it as soon as possible. I don't intend to harm or hurt you in any way, and I promise not to abuse my power over you."

The sixformer nodded silently. It wasn't like he had been given permission to speak, after all. Respect towards a victorious warrior was encoded in him even deeper than his phase-sixer failsafe, and there was no point in showing otherwise to the mech who just gave his word to treat him honorably.

Optimus took one step back before he transformed. With this, he also gave a nonverbal permission to their captive to do the same. The forest wasn't very thick, and they only had to move down the slope. He opened his passenger's side door, and told Blaster to transform and jump in for the ride. A white and dark gray offroad vehicle followed them without being told. They rolled out of the forest into the sunset's last golden lights, and headed to the Autobot headquarters. Blaster stayed quiet, his speakers probably still torpid after the long-range hacking. If there was any communication going on, it happened on their built-in radio's secret frequencies. Optimus was glad for his silence.

"Where do you usually recharge, Sixshot?" the leader suddenly asked. The mech would certainly need some rest and a proper defragmentation after the hacking.

"In the open, whenever I can" was the reply. In fact, it had been long since he last had to recharge in any built structure. The inside of a dormant volcano didn't seem appealing, even if supposing he would not fit in the prison cells of the Autobot ship and so might be placed somewhere more comfortable. "I usually recharge in my shuttle mode in deep space, away from the orbit of any objects. For now, I would be happy if you allow me to sleep close to the crater of the volcano. I could not get far away, with my codes in your possession." With that, he hoped he could still have at least some visual contact with the open air. Captured by the Autobots, he would be glad if he was given enough space to transform.

"All right" Optimus decided. "The outside of Mount Saint Hillary is yours for tonight, then. But I remind you, you are of no strategic value to the Decepticons at the moment. You need to hold your fire until we exchange you for Ratchet."

"Yeah" Blaster added. "Especially with Soundwave still under repairs on Cybertron after our last battle. You're our prisoner, allowed out for good behavior."

"I will honor that."


	2. Phase 2

**Phase two – pre-existing hotspots**

The Northern side of the volcano was just as barren as the others, save for the large silhouette that was shining in the morning light. Occasionally an electric sparkle ran through a plate of armor as the mech burnt off the impurities without even registering them. He was well fuelled, and it had shown on his perfectly clean armor. As he went closer, Optimus could also see a panel tilting. That was another sign of the prisoner's good condition, as unconscious movements were one of the first to shut down to save energy. Hopefully it also indicated that the post-hacking headache was eliminated in a good recharge.

Sixshot seemed to be in near-mint condition, which Optimus was pleased to see. Guessing that Ratchet wasn't doing so good was no reason to mistreat the trade offer. Even if he was the Decepticons' most destructive living weapon.

As a white hand mirrored the first rays of the Sun into a dimmed optic (was the Decepticon recharging deliberately in such position?) the ventilation of the brain module activated as a sign that the mech started to boot. Optimus stepped a little further, contemplating the mech for a while. He wasn't sure how much caution was due in the hacked sixformer's presence. He wasn't the only one to know the new code, but giving an opportunity to be shot in the back wasn't on his to-do list in this beautiful morning. He walked to the Southern side of the hill, putting most of the volcano and the remains of the Ark between the two of them. He set his audio- and electromagnetic sensors to high sensitivity, and turned East, basking his whole frame in the rays of the rising Sun. When it rose to his optic level, his chest panels opened to reveal the bright artefact planted next to his spark. Intense blue blaze complemented the orange-gold, and the Prime reached out with both arms as if to embrace the distant light-source.

Optimus stood like this for half a breem. He finally turned around when the Sun rose above his optic level, and the symmetric chest panels closed back to their original places.

"You have answered a lot of my personal questions, Prime."

He looked up at the mech on the hillside. His optics were still shining with an unusual brilliance.

"Some of those questions were related to my take on leadership." There wasn't even a shade of doubt in his voice.

"And some were about your connection to Primus" the phase-sixer nodded. He transformed to wolf mode to scratch his left ear, and from there, to spaceship mode to glide down the hillside without activating his engines. "Do you have any news regarding my release?" he asked.

"Not a word, yet" Optimus Prime answered. "Steeljaw insists that the message must have arrived to Megatron's ship, to your base on Mars and to the main towers at Iacon. We got no reply from any."

Sixshot pulled himself closer as he took his tank mode. Apart from turning his cannons away from the Prime (which he immediately did) there weren't any expressions visible on him at that moment. Optimus could only make guesses. Hesitantly, he stepped into the Decepticon's personal space, and laid a cautious hand on the dark gray metal. He felt a very tiny zap of electricity under his palm, probably an unintended discharge due to unexpected contact. The truck-bot felt as if he had sneaked behind the sixformer just to give him a fright.

"You will get home, Sixshot. You will get home, eventually. It just takes time for Megatron to recognise the value of his warriors." He patted the root of the right cannon, as if he was comforting a friend, not an enemy whose precious freedom he took the day before. The Decepticon was clearly unfamiliar with this kind of physical contact, but he did not pull away.

"I have not expected Megatron to reply so soon, anyway" the Prime continued. "And I guess we miss Ratchet more than he would miss any of his troops." Not to mention worrying for them, but Optimus didn't say that loud.

"I will be bored out of my processor before he would notice he'd lost one out of three phase-sixers" Sixshot added. "Though Blackshadow is costlier than the entire Worldsweeper fleet was, and just as trustworthy... and Overlord tends to go off target if he sees something more interesting on the way." There was some unbent pride in his words. "Literally. Have you heard about the death of the living planet called Alya? Rippersnapper has an entire collection of baseless urban legends of Megatron having some personal reasons to send Overlord there. My favorite of these says Ov was originally sent there for therapy. But the prosaic truth is, Alya was halfway to the real target, Feminia. That planet was nothing but rainbows and flowers and knick-knacks, it shouldn't have been much of a challenge for Ov. Megatron supposed that also meant he was enough for the task. Overlord proved him wrong."

Optimus's hand stiffened on the Decepticon's plating. His day started so well, he hadn't expected to be told stories of the ends of two entire planets. Even worse, Sixshot seemed to think it was funny.

"Imagine Megatron's first reaction to the eradication of not Feminia but a worthless rock five entire lightyears away from it. He had called Overlord a shameful combination of a chicken and a turboworm, an overfueled pile of loose screws, and the embodiment of idiocy without a trace of sense or duty or use. And, to make sure the job was actually done for second try, he sent Abominus to keep Overlord on the right track and Menasor because somebody _had_ to be the brain module of the team."

There was a growl coming from the inside of the volcano, and a sleepy voice stated, "Me Grimlock think Megatron could use brain modules too."

Optimus stepped away from the sixformer, and transformed to roll back to the Ark. "Don't go further than hearing range" was his last command to his captive.

Sixshot knew better than to attempt an escape. After the hacking on the day before, he was painfully aware of Blaster's abilities. He looked up at the sky. With so many communication satellites orbiting around Earth, he presumed the Autobots could shut him down even if he would have made it to the outer rim of the atmosphere. And what would he gain? A weapon who could be switched off by the enemy with a simple call... Sixshot suddenly felt miserable. And lost. Despite his act of pride and his trademark unconcern, he admitted to himself that he was disappointed with Megatron not claiming him back immediately. He tried to blame it on Soundwave's battle damage. Yes, most likely Megatron planned for Soundwave to undo the hacking and seal his brain from further interference. He _was_ loyal, even if Megatron was suspicious about him. He wouldn't have turned on his leader. The Prime was right about Megatron not recognizing his warriors' values.

Talking of whom. Optimus had taken it relatively well when he shared the decades-old story of Overlord running down the wrong planet. He could feel the mech's revulsion, but his overall reaction was better than he had expected.

He dropped to tank mode and rolled halfway around the volcano – he knew that he was still in sensor range, but it gave him the illusion of being in private. He didn't know how long it would take for Megatron to exchange the Autobot medic for him, but he needed to stay in shape. He started his routine transform-ups with turning from tank to robot and back five times, then from tank to gun and back five times, from tank to off-road car, tank to wolf, tank to spaceship, five times each. With that done, he performed transform-ups from robot to gun, robot to car, robot to wolf, robot to spaceship. Without taking a rest, he continued with gun to car, gun to wolf, gun to spaceship, car to wolf, car to spaceship, wolf to spaceship... and then he repeated the entire routine with not five but ten transform-ups in each direction. When he felt his cogs overheating, he pushed himself through the circle of tank – robot – gun – car – wolf – ship three times, and only then did he start stretching.

To any random onlooker, the positions he took seemed like random mixtures of his different parts, but never had anyone asked why he spent a whole breem so mistransformed that not even his designers would identify which part belonged where. He tried to move his legs (or, parts that were legs in some other modes) separately while the rest of his body was halfway between his tank and car modes. He tried to stretch out his neck while he was halfway between spaceship and gun. He tried to fold out his wings while he was in his wolf form. These poses had no direct use for him in combat, but he didn't want his frame to become a brick if he could help that. Just sitting at the hillfoot and lamenting to himself about boredom and Autobot captivity would do no good to him.

"Sixy?" That was Optimus Prime's voice. The sixformer slowly picked himself up from the ground and rearranged his parts.

"I'm coming" he said, wondering if he should test the Prime's patience a little. It wasn't like he was an Autobot to be summoned whenever the situation demanded it.

He walked back to the Ark's entrance, radiating pride, power and self-confidence. He wanted Optimus to see him as the formidable warrior he was. The mech had promised not to use his off-code unless severely provoked, and Sixshot intended to remind him that being his prisoner didn't automatically grant the Autobot any rights over him.

To his surprise, the red and blue mech was pushing a wheeled table to the opening. There was a flexible-looking band, most likely of local materials, and two round objects with a handle on each. The sight suddenly made him uncomfortable. Not that the band looked long enough to restrain him, if it came to that. It also looked lacerate-able, although he knew better than to underestimate anything he never encountered before. That mistake had been the downfall of many warriors. But, what was important, the Prime seemed to be alone. No scientists, nobot with blades. Sixshot was confident he had no reason to fear whatever the Prime had in mind for him.

"I'll be back in an astrosec'" Optimus promised, and rolled back to the Ark. Sixshot was given time to examine the table more closely. The round objects' handles seemed to be adjustable, and both sides of the circular parts were covered in a flexible material derived from crude oil. Or so he guessed. The band was actually a soft, slightly torn net with two solid pieces on each end. Just like the handles, the cylindrical solid pieces seemed to be adjustable to a degree. And – it was short, indeed. Hardly longer than the width of the table. It was not meant for tying any mech down, he took that for granted. But he had no idea what it was for, then.

The Prime returned, just as cheerful as he left. He was holding a tiny, fragile white orb in his left hand.

"Pick a racket, I will set up the net" Optimus said, still nowhere near a commanding voice. "Since there are size differences among us anyway, we have eight sets of them. These ones are mostly for combiners. We usually follow the rule of same size racket and proportionate courts. I only gave you a three-to-one court because I guess you're new to table tennis."

Table tennis. Local sport, invented by humans, adopted by Autobots. It could be played in a competitive manner with two individuals or two pairs trying to make the ball leave the playing surface on the side of the opponent, or it could be played in a cooperative manner when the aim is to keep the ball in motion for as long as possible. Of course he had never tried it before.

"I guess that is because I'm a phase-sixer."

"First serve is yours."

Just because he had never done it, Sixshot didn't want to seem like a fumbler. It only took him moments to download a few gigabytes of video files from available resources and process them. He bounced the ball with the rubbery surface of the racket to calculate the force, speed and angle of his first hit. Then, he served: the ball bounced neatly on his court, and then, on Optimus's. The Prime stroke the ball back in a motion that hinted experience and agility. The Decepticon accepted the challenge. The ball bounced again, and was soon on its way back to the Prime's one-fourth of the table.

"Good move!" Optimus noted. He hit the ball with a loop so slow that it almost touched the net, and Sixshot was very glad of the stretchings he was doing earlier because otherwise he wouldn't have reached the skulking white orb before it bounced off the table. He sent the ball back with a speed drive, which Optimus shuffled off, and in the matter of astroseconds, Sixshot found himself rallying to the other side of his court, adamant on not giving Prime the first score in the match. Then he let a curse slip when the ball smacked the very center of the net.

The two masked mechs exchanged invisible smiles. Sixshot picked up the ball and served again. Doing something pointless was so much better than boredly waiting for yet another mundane task. Besides, he was invited to play the Earthlings' game by no less than the Prime.

He admitted that the innocent sport was a smart idea. There was no direct contact, during which he could have damaged the enemy leader. It wasn't a battle after which the looser would grovel away in shame. It was just an activity, an excuse to speed up his frame and his processor. As far as he could tell, their match resembled more like the friendlier, cooperative version of the sport with all the long sets and audible giggles. He was somewhat disappointed when the Prime called off the match, and left with the same strict prohibition of not leaving the Ark's hearing range.

Sixshot took his offroader car form, and parked himself behind a pile of fallen stones. He preferred to be unseen in his misery. If Megatron had needed him urgently, he would have already been exchanged. He had never been captured before. Cornered, yes, tested to the end of his abilities, also, stomped on by Metroplex, but he had never been a prisoner to be traded for an Autobot medic. He offed his engines, and waited for the time to pass. All of a sudden, channeling destruction to alien worlds didn't seem as bad as he had started to believe.

With sensors calibrated to find hiding targets, he could tell there was a briefing going on inside the Autobot base. No... there was an argument. At least a dozen Autobots of different sizes were arguing about him, and Optimus Prime was one of them.

He wished he had understood more of what was going on in there. How could any mech openly question their Prime's decision? The 'Cons didn't even argue with Megatron, who was simply their leader by accepting challenges and rising above his mechs through his own faculties, not a Matrix-bearer chosen by a deity. The contrast between the two of them was profound and upsetting: the Prime had allowed such quarrels because those couldn't even dent his position among his Autobots. He was apparently above issues like upholding his reputation. Sixshot wished he had at least some spying abilities, although he was obviously not a spy by character. He barely caught a few words, and not even those provided him an insight to whatever was going on.

The voices slowly calmed down, and everybot went their own ways. Optimus didn't show up until much later, and this time, he was followed by the flashy-eared inventor whose most infamous hobby was to create various objects that didn't look like a bomb until somebot attempted to use them.

"Wheeljack wants to check you through thoroughly" the Prime stated. "And I suggest for your own good that you comply."

So here it starts, then. Transformation was an Autobot invention, but the ability to have a (wide) variety of alternate modes was a Decepticon talent. Considering how fast the Autobots acquired the gestalt technology, Sixshot had no illusions about remaining the only sixformer for long. He hated being unable to fight.

"Is there a way you could unarm him?" a paranoid-sounding voice asked through a built-in speaker.

"Negative, Red" was Wheeljack's answer. "That would be disassembling him. I considered limiting his energon pumps' capacities to reduce firepower, but he seems to be channeling from dark matter, completely unrelated to his energon consumption."

"I have a dark matter fission cell sealed away in my core" Sixshot sighed before the Autobot dwelled more into the topic.

"We cannot constrain that" Wheeljack continued. "From the scans I took, it seems that the moment it is just partially disconnected from his spark, it would break out of control and give us a shiny antimatter supernova in the middle of the workbench. No, limiting his energy flood is out of question" Wheeljack repeated. "You would have to rely on verbal restrictions, Optimus. I'm sorry."

The Prime nodded as if he wasn't surprised by the technician's findings. Wheeljack transformed to the racecar form that disguised the scientist and rolled back to the Ark.

Sixshot was yet again (seemingly) alone with the Autobot leader, but the atmosphere between them was so different from only a few breems ago. Optimus wasn't talking, now. Sixshot paced around him, a looming white-teal-gray monstrosity, circling around a prey that could disable him with one single command.

Optimus looked up, his gaze only briefly meeting the accusing red optics. An astrosecond later, he was staring up at something behind the destroyer – it could have been a comet, or could have been a K-class bomb... but actually, it was just an Autobot falling on a graceless trajectory.

"Skyfire's back!" the Prime's words were echoed by at least four others around the base. All of a sudden, the large six-formed problem didn't seem to concern them nearly as much.

Skyfire arrived as a bright meteor, burning off some of his colors in the atmosphere. He hit the ground about a third of a hic from the Ark, and started to transform back to his normal, robotic form. Optimus was the first to arrive there. Skyfire accepted his helping hand, and the Prime supported his travel-damaged trooper as he stumbled closer to the Ark. The newcomer muttered something like an apology about a failure, but Optimus reassured him that it wasn't his fault.

"We all are hoping for a word of Ratchet, and none of us has anything, so far. Have a cube, Skyfire. Take a rest. Recharge. You will continue your search later." And, as if that wasn't clear enough, he added "tomorrow."

Skyfire shook his head. "Optimus. Do you think Ratchet gets to comfortably recharge while he's in Decepticon hands? Do you think he gets a highgrade?"

The Prime's voice went harder. "Skyfire. Do you think you are in a condition that allows you to continue the search?"

The bigger mech took a moment before he replied. "No... if I were, I wouldn't have had to come back without him." He accepted the cube of bright pink high-grade, and downed it without even analyzing it for a nanosec. Sixshot noted this type of behavior: it wasn't the thirst of a mech who had been starving. No, Skyfire had been optimally fuelled only a short time ago, but he'd used up all his resources in a pointless, fruitless, hopeless attempt to find the medic.

And Sixshot would have bet that he was nowhere near the docbot, all the way.

Skyfire downed a second cube, and his colors started to return on his chassis. His color nanites displayed pale pink and dim white, with a weak blue glow in his optics. But before he would have stumbled into the Ark for a recharge and perhaps yet another dose of fuel, he looked up into Sixshot's critical red optics.

"I heard the news, Sixshot. Tell me: how does it feel to be treated as a mech instead of a weapon, for a change?"

"A change, indeed" the Decepticon murmured.


	3. Phase 3

**Phase three – first direct contact**

::I wonder why Decepticons always got the most cooperative humans while we still struggle to make them understand the most simple facts like 'no visitors this week'?::

::'Cons got to pick who they work with::

::And look who's complaining! Wasn't it Chip Chase who pieced your fragmented processor together last month?::

Sixshot suppressed a smile. It was Blaster's idea to set up an automated two-way transmitter in the middle of the Ark's rec room. The device allowed communication as if he were in there while he was actually two kleps away.

::It takes Old 'Hide quite a long time to get back to business, don't you think, Prowl?::

::I wonder if it's still the same battle damage Chromia's working on, or she inflicted some new dents on his frame just to give him a reason to stay longer::

Only two local days had passed, and the large Decepticon already knew more than he wanted about these Autobots' lives...

::Where in the fraggin' frag is my dataslug? I left it in this console of Teletraan when I was looking for info about Ultra's construction date!::

...interests...

::Do you know what effect Issue 113 had on the current comic industry on global scale? Hm?::

...hobbies...

::Whoever took my Super Bowl VIP ticket, has ten astrosecs to give it back or else I will beat them like a heavyweight!::

...weaknesses...

::Has anybot, ever seen Beachy _that_ high on crysmag?::

::Nope, but I have a vid of him on syk and stim on Daniel's christening::

::Ha! I've seen that!::

::_Everybot_ has seen that...::

From time to time he caught himself listening to four or five different discussions simultaneously. Multitasking wasn't a challenge for his brain modules (he had capacity for much, much more than processing five separate dialogues at the same time) but it brought up old memories. Last time he was communicating like this, they were searching for their lost leader. He recalled Blackshadow announcing "This is pointless. Not worth trying anymore". Those words still haunted him as a reminder of weakness in all of them.

Of course, back then, neither of them were phase-sixers, and they didn't have the authority to decide on abandoning their mission, but it was Blackshadow whose words started the chain reaction. Sixshot still wondered how history would have been different if he just stayed quiet, back then.

::Don't you accuse me, Eject?::

::No, but you have access to the security cams so you might have seen who took my VIP ticket! Blaster will tell you to play them back, if you don't help me now::

::I have my priorities. I can't look for lost tickets when we have a phase-sixer to watch::

Sixshot decided it was time to join the discussion.

::Define loyalty::

There was a moment of silence at the unexpected words.

::Ugh, hi, Sixy. It's nice to hear you here:: He recognised Wheeljack's voice. ::Loyalty? Good question. It is something like making a decision, and keeping to it later when the circumstances have changed::

::A promise of being reliable:: an Autobot Cassette said.

::I think it's like love, but one-sided. When you don't expect anything in return. That's why it's unconditional:: It was Prowl, the Autobot second-in-command. He had a very characteristic, calm, benevolent tone.

::Interesting idea:: This had to be one of the Protectobots.

::Prowl has a point, you have to admit. One cannot love a political ideology, for example. You follow it but you don't expect it to make your life any better::

::Actually, the worse it gets, the harder people will stick to it::

::Hey, isn't that the explanation of humans believing in whatever slag the Decepticons tell them? Streetwise, you just answered your own question, I think::

::Quite possible, Groove::

From that moderate first time, Sixshot consciously developed his interactions with his captors. It wasn't like he had anything better to do than exploring possible weaknesses of the enemy... or simply communicating with them like one warrior would talk to another. He remembered enemies he fought in his life, secretly hoping for new challenges to come. He spoke of the innocent-looking yellow bounty hunter with whom they chased each other through Hedonia, resulting in both Cybertronians and energy creatures getting banned from most cities there. Blaster wondered whether the ban would have bothered either Kremzeek or the phase-sixer.

::Next time I landed there, it happened completely by accident:: Sixshot replied.

::You planted a very huge purple Decepticon logo in the middle of the capital!::

He was surprised to hear the Protectobot leader, Hot Shot. That 'Bot was usually on duty in some other dirty corner of the planet, and he only returned to the Ark to fuel and recharge.

::I was chosen to test-fly a worldsweeper. Compared to Shockwave, for example, I wasn't even bad at keeping it in space::

Someone commented on Autobots not being better pilots either, and the rest quickly defended Optimus Prime. As if the Ark's current position had _something_ to do with him. Sixshot stared up at the cloudless sky, wondering when he will board his ship again. When will he function again, as a weapon and not as an ununtrium-coated treasure chest to be traded?

::Me Swoop bored:: Oh, he was not the only one.

::Me Slag want another Six story!::

::Me Snarl ditto::

Wheeljack pinged him on another frequency.

::You would do me a great favor if you kept them busy for yet another breem::

Sixshot replied on that same, private frequency ::What's the B option?:: Sarcasm was so blatant in his voice, Wheeljack was sure the Decepticon wasn't expecting an answer.

Indeed, an astrosec later he spoke up on the common room's two-way radio.

::Have you ever heard how the Zahrii lost their only warrior who could have saved their world?::

::Who Zahrii?::

::I haven't heard about them either::

::Wasn't Zahrra a Decepticon target when we took off for this search four million years ago?::

Sixshot did a quick calculation. One vorn equals roughly 83 local years... which meant that not one cycle for the past forty-eight thousand vorns passed without him remembering Old Boomer's fate.

::Zahrra was a rich and well developed world in a star system that had been constantly chewed on by wars. Its natives excelled at bioimplant technology, and one of their finest creations was Old Boomer, a Zahri who had lost his limbs when rescuing his elders in a bombing during their war against the Cerulean Fleet. Zahrii scientists were such experts of their own kind, they spotted the Decepticon agents among their lines despite our best efforts, and Mindwipe's team had to call for help, or else they would have been disassembled alive by the enraged population of Zahrra. Because of the strategic value at risk I was sent in to cover them and ensure their safe retreat. That was when I first encountered Old Boomer, and his squad called the Silhouettes. Boomer may have been vulnerable compared to me, but he was such a tactical genius not even my six forms could defeat him. All I managed was to separate him from his squad while the other Silhouettes decimated the pretender agents. He was a magnificient warrior with the firepower matching mine. His downfall was that our fight wrecked the planet capital city-chain. I had to abandon the battle to get the Decepticons out. Old Boomer, wounded and exhausted, was then found in the middle of a ruined metropolis with dozens of thousands killed around him. What Mindwipe's team failed to do, the Zahrii completed. They accused him of going insane and bombing the cities himself. Obviously, with no survivors around us to back up his story, there was no proof of the metal beast he was constantly babbling about. Not even his Silhouettes believed his story::

::Did they sentence him to death because he protected his planet from you?:: Groove asked.

::If only. That would have been a mercy Old Boomer well deserved. They were too afraid of his power to openly do that. He was thrown in a maximum security prison, without treating his wounds, without properly hearing him out... without the Silhouettes visiting him. When Zahrra got to phase six, Megatron warned me not to give time for the Zahrii to release him::

::They didn't:: First Aid guessed.

::I was his first visitor in half of a local year's time:: Sixshot admitted and shut up. He didn't want to talk about the filthy prison cell in which he had found his former opponent, he didn't want to talk about the chains that were welded to the stumps of his implants. ::When he saw me, his first question was the fate of his comrades. When I told him they went down like heroes, he only asked me to give him the same end:: For that, the phase-sixer had to break Boomer's chains himself, but that was not the public part of the story. ::He was still a brilliant strategist, and he remembered all the weaknesses I involuntarily revealed to him in our battle. And if it wasn't for his malnourishment, he might have finished me::

But, thanks to the behavior of his own kind, Old Boomer didn't even pose a noticeable threat to the Decepticon in his miserable condition. Sixshot burnt that memory into his data banks. Old Boomer's was the same fate that awaited all warriors if the civilians got the upper hand. Fear. Mistrust. Disbelief. Insanity.

But that was not the only thing bothering him about the great warrior. Hearing what happened to the other Silhouettes, Old Boomer told him that each day he prayed – first for a visit of just one of his fellows, when he gave up on that hope, for them simply being alive and well. He hoped they were all right, and they only didn't care about him out of abomination. Sixshot didn't have the spark to tell him how easily he swept them off the palette of existence on his way to the prison. Just as much as he didn't tell Megatron about how he met Old Boomer for the second and last time. Ever since, the Zahri's fate hunted him until he finally faced that fear and accepted that one day the same would be done to him. Perhaps that was why all phase-sixers had a shut-down code burnt into the deepest cells of their minds? When all would be over, few simple words from their superiors would end their existence. That seemed a lot more humane than the slow and humiliating end the Zahrii had for their powerful warrior. And there was one more thing. Old Boomer had his brothers in arms to pray for. Sixshot wasn't much of a religious mech apart from acknowledging a deity no longer interested in his creations, but after that second encounter, he had to admit the greatest difference between him and Boomer: in the same situation, he wouldn't have had anyone to pray for. That realization made him envy the Zahri warrior, despite all his mistreat and the Silhouettes deserting him.

Of course he never spoke about this aspect of the story either.

::Did one defeat you Six Con?:: Swoop asked. ::Where those defeat you?::

:: My defeaters, the Reapers, had been eliminated with a trick after I fell:: Sixshot summed up a long story short. Then he went into the details. He told the Dinobots about how he was lured to a distant planet Mumu-Obscura with his Terrorcon friends as bait, how he was tested by the highly skilled warriors, and why he had to turn down their offer. He spoke with great respect about the self-supporting society of various fighters who intended to bring real peace to the universe, as they have accepted the cost of such peace – the destruction of everything worth fighting for.

Optimus Prime immediately called their basic concept a horrible idea. Sixshot was surprised to hear him over the frequency of lower-ranking mechs, as he didn't even guess that the Autobot leader was interested in minor details of his life story. He supposed the Prime was relying on dense summaries from his crew.

::It is the most unfair to take away what others deem worth dying for!:: the Prime declared. ::If they choose to fight for something, we outsiders have no right to take it away from them!:: No surprise here, he was well known for his commitment to the freedom of choice.

::Well, they respected my decision of saving the Terrorcons instead:: Sixshot admitted. ::Although I have to admit I was tempted to go with them. I would have had a new reason to function::

::You Six Con ready accept first offer:: Grimlock suddenly remarked.

Sixshot didn't comment on that statement.

The next day Optimus and Red Alert took the space bridge to Cybertron. Sixshot hoped that the Prime would contact Shockwave there, and agree on the prisoner exchange as soon as possible. He was out of things to do. This radio contact, while better than nothing, only provided a mild diversion from going insane.

He spoke of numerous enemies he came across in his long functioning. Some have left their marks on him, either on his frame or in his spark, and he cherished their memories as these warriors were the closest he had to his own kind. But very few of them lived long enough to talk about their encounters afterwards.

::Big D. was perhaps the only one who could outrun me:: he mused one afternoon. ::And it wasn't his decision to do so. He only wanted to keep me from crossing the Wyattian space bridge after securing his patients through it. He had a very interesting ability, he could adsorb practically any kind of energy. He even said he _liked_ my sonic concussion blasters hitting him. As if it was some massage for his battle-worn frame!::

To this, the Autobot communication officer audibly giggled.

::Must have been irritating for you::

::It took me time to figure that wearing the big mech out was the key to defeating him. But when he was almost done with, he crossed the space bridge and adsorbed all its energy on his way. With the controls already smelted, I could not figure out where he went. Not even he knew, I suppose. But, with his batteries that depleted, the energy of an already broken bridge could not re-energize him enough:: In fact, Big D was rather smart and highly motivated when it came to protecting his patients. Sixshot didn't know how many warfield wrecks the medic brought back to life before his last and only battle.

::I never heard about him afterwards. A pity. It was a real challenge to fight an Autobot over thirty times my size::

::As long as they won't step on you::

::Thanks for reminding me, Ramhorn:: Sixshot hissed back.

::You phase-sixers ever worked together before phase-sixers?:: Swoop inquired.

::Only once. Nova Prime was off planet for about a meta-cycle, and the quintessons thought it was their chance to take back Cybertron. When they didn't take our first hint, Early Con decided to launch a pre-emptive strike. We were strong, motivated, and, of course, we were testing our limits like all young Cybertronians do.::

::Sixshot: built in Nova's time?:: A new voice, resonant, deep, familiar. Judging from the quality of the signal, the speaker was about a solar rek from the nearest spacebridge transmitter. And, apparently, he had been listening in for a while. ::That explains a lot, old mech::

::Old is your underclocked shipboard computer, Omega Supreme! I am in near-mint condition. Especially, compared to you::

::What happened to quintessons?:: Grimlock didn't sound to be interested in two old mechs teasing each other about their creation date.

::With me, Blackshadow and Overlord around? We rendered Quintessa completely flat. With a few dents on it::

::Served them well!:: Wheeljack noted.

::I wonder what the truth is behind all those horror stories about the quints:: a Protectobot mused loud.

::You don't want to know that, Groove:: Omega Supreme replied. ::The missing parts of recorded history had been left out with a reason::

::Not even the Quints can be that bad!:: Hot Shot argued. ::I mean, it might have been a crowd psychology phenomenon. If we took one individual out from the mass, that one specimen could have possibly been amiable::

::A thought worthy of Optimus Prime::

::Thank you, Omega::

::The only problem with your theory is that quintessons hardly ever worked alone:: Sixshot remarked.

::That somewhat proves my point, doesn't it?::

There was a very polite ping on yet another frequency. Sixshot wondered if he should reply. He had accepted this radio connection Wheeljack and Blaster had built out for him, but he often felt it was a little too much. He never was a social, story-telling mechanism. On the other hand, usually he had something else to do instead of chatting. Transform-ups and stretching wasn't much of an entertainment.

::Yes, Skyfire?::

::I was wondering if you could tell me your version of our creation? I have been told several. Hearing yours might shade some light on the contradictions::

Outside, where no-one could see him, Sixshot rose to robot form and started his evening-time series of transformations. This was going to be a long story anyway.

::The first being we know is Primus. Wherever he came from, why he was created, by whom: there are far too many guesses, far too little proof. His body is what we now know as Cybertron. Before his arrival, it was just a lifeless piece of metal, which his divine presence had filled with life. Like all that's great and powerful, Cybertron had attracted parasites that made their own profit from the metal and the life flowing through it::

Sixshot finished the first set of transform-ups with ten transformations from his robot mode and back, and continued with his offroad vehicle transformations.

::Perhaps unaware of what they were doing, the quintessons created two lines of robots. There was a strictly military-use series, one that they marked with a purple, triangular branch. The other was a domestic line, less focused, more diverse. How and why these first creatures gained sentience, remains a mystery, but my bet is on Primus and his will to get rid of the five-faced slimes::

::So, we were designed to fight our mutual enemy together, right? Assuming these two lines were the first Decepticons and Autobots, respectively::

::Both factions tend to refer to them so::

He finished with the car mode's transform-ups, and went on with spaceship mode.

::After ridding our god and home from the quintessons, we went to explore the stars and to take what was awaiting us. Many mechs from the non-military line had become scientists and worked together to develop a magnificent ability: transformation. Later, type of origin was not an issue anymore. Under Nova Prime's command, Cybertronians were one, united species. The division became a thing of the past, a memory of the darkest times of our history. Mechs who were built free after the quintessons' time were not marked anymore – the roles of each individual Transformer were only determined by their own frames::

::I guess I was one of those mechs. You know, it makes sense. I see why I couldn't remember my faction when I was onlined after my crash in the ice. I had no faction to remember::

::Likely. We might be contemporaries, if you think about it. We were both designed for expansion::

Skyfire only gave a hesitant, uncertain beep. After the spaceship mode, Sixshot went on with his wolf mode.

::You were not here for Nova Prime's disappearance, and the power fights that followed. Suddenly, mechs started to define themselves by the parties they belonged to, and the old brand-marks were rediscovered. Not all went back to the faction they should have belonged to, however. There were warriors who sided with Autobot ideals, and there were scientists who felt their interests were better represented by Decepticons::

::Starscream, for example?:: Skyfire interrupted him.

::And Rossum. He was definitely a domestic type in structure, but Decepticon in the spark::

::I read all his published works, but I never got to meet him in person. What happened to him?::

::Occupational incident::

Skyfire decided not to dwell into that.

Sixshot continued after the wolf mode with the tank form.

::The infights led to division, to dissatisfaction, to riots. Everyone tried to cope with the changes, to find their place in the formerly peaceful world. I consider myself lucky to have been where I belonged. I was a warrior, among many others, and we had each others' backs while the leader-wannabes were trying to figure out how to get rid of those mechs they considered problematic::

::Knowing Starscream, I think I get what you call 'problematic'. He had always been stubborn and persistent about whatever he felt right::

::Actually, it was his idea to hire the then-neutral Constructicons to build a mech who was an unbending warrior in spark, a persistent leader in programming, one who would endure the heavy burden of leadership and not back away from the battlefield as long as the gain outweighed the loss::

At this point, Sixshot ceased doing his tank-mode's transformation, and took his gun form.

::Megatron became our leader, seizing power wherever he could, and building up a military structure we could fit into. He coordinated the factious band of us into an organized army, in hopes we could take what was once ours and continue where Nova Prime had left us. But the other faction, the one that at the time consisted mostly of civilians and ideologists, stood in the way of restoring former glory and expanding our influence to the further worlds. What started as a merely political malcontent has grown into a civil war that left us with too many enemies... and too little to return to. I guess you are the only mech untouched by that loss, as you have seen what our planet was like, and you have not witnessed our downfall::

::I... thank you for the information, Sixshot. I don't think Nova Prime was right when he decided to conquer whatever he came across, and I certainly don't blame the Autobots for standing up against the destruction you and Megatron represent. But I will think about your words, and I will pray to Primus that one day we will be one, again. I fear I will have plenty time for that::

::For the prayer? Are you going to continue your search for the docbot?::

::Unless somebot else has already found him, yes, I have to. He would do the same for me::

::I understand::

He transformed back to robot mode wondering what to say. If it wouldn't have meant him losing his remaining value, he would have probably wished good luck to his young-minded contemporary.

The planet's atmosphere lost its blue after the sun had set. It became invisible, dark, allowing the nearby stars to be seen. The lonely prisoner looked up at the distant worlds, wondering what was happening on the war fronts while he was trapped here.

Not that his imprisonment was that bad, he had to admit. It could have been worse. He could have been stuffed into a small chamber where he couldn't even get the momentum to move. His transformation cogs could have been blocked. Compared to these possibilities, being allowed to at least move freely was a blessing. Only his given word kept him from storming away or burning up the whole Autobot base in a matter of astroseconds. But here was the catch, too: he might have been able to break free from a prison cell, but he wouldn't break his own promise.

He saw a flicker of a distant planet, and his battle program activated on instinct. There could have been a battle, right then. He had no idea who was fighting whom, but he wished he could have been there. He powered down his weapons, and turned away in shame. He couldn't go.

His only contact to his own kind was a radio signal to a ragtag bunch of civilians. And even that was courtesy of his enemies. Besides, it was almost silent during the night. The sensors placed in the Ark's main room only activated if there was something for him to hear. Even when he tried activating it through telemetry, he heard nothing else but the distant noises from Wheeljack's laboratory, or the weary steps of a Protectobot, or a Dinobot unconsciously transforming in recharge.

He wondered why the work rhythm of Transformers changed after settling on a planet. Even if it was an aspect of their adaptation, the long and frequent recharge periods didn't make sense to him. Many of these Autobots slept almost as much as a human would. He supposed that the inactivity of the two species had the same outer reasons.

By contrast, Skyfire had spent orns out in space, searching for Ratchet's energy signature, and he was already circling out of recharge every once in a while.

::Sixshot?::

::What is it, Skyfire?::

::There's a quote from a local author that makes me wonder::

Sixshot had enough of Earth culture. Blaster was playing local music almost all the time, and the cassettes constantly talked about various Earthen entertainment. He didn't like how little they seemed to be interested in Cybertronian culture.

::What quote?:: he asked, wearily.

::'You get treated like a dumb animal long enough, that's what you become'::

::And? Do you agree with it?::

::I was wondering if it is also valid with 'sparkless weapon' instead of 'dumb animal'::

::Why is _that_ bothering you?::

::I'm a scientist. It is in my programming to be bothered by questions::

::You're a scientist. It should be in your database that I wouldn't function without a spark. And even Megatron knows that::

Whether or not Skyfire was content with that information, he remained silent after that.

::Skyfire?::

::Yes, Sixshot?::

::I didn't intend to be rude. Yes I do have a spark, and such facts cannot be undone by ignoring them. Sometimes it's just better to be the only one remembering it::

::Have you ever granted mercy to those in your way?:: That was Ramhorn, Blaster's most to-the-point cassette. So much about these private frequencies being private.

::Even if I did, I don't think I would tell you:: He could tell at least four more Autobots suddenly tuned to this channel. He scratched his wolf-mode's left ear, and added ::I was in trouble enough when Shockwave found out::

From the small noises of signal reception, it sounded like most Autobots at the base had suddenly switched to this frequency. They were listening in with itching audiosensors as if they weren't fast asleep just a few astrosecs before. He could have as well changed to the common room's channel.

::No way I would talk about that on record::

He curled into his tank mode, the one most shielded from the outside world. He had his reasons to censor his stories and keep certain details to himself.

It was almost dawn. The Eastern horizon was no longer as black as the rest of the sky above him, the light of the shining stars slowly faded as the Sun came into vision again. Yet another night had passed without Megatron needing him.

He registered some movement at the Ark's entrance. Odd, he wondered. Who could that be, and more importantly: why? Optimus had appeared to be the only mech awake during his morning ritual, and he was on Cybertron, or somewhere else, far from here. And what would this mechanism have to do out here? They stayed inside their base ever since he was captured.

Sixshot rose to robot mode, his red optics glowing sullenly. He would endure contact with an enemy leader with pride, but he resented being vulnerable to every single mech around. Furthermore, he recognised this to be one of Blaster's cassettes, and he remembered the horrible headache the Autobot communication officer could inflict on him. The tiny mech seemed to be too aware of that. Sixshot recalled those good old days when he was feared even by those whom he had no business with, simply because he was close to them. Most Decepticons fled when he entered the room. This tiny Autobot ignored the most basic rules of protocol as he walked straight up to the destroyer, and patted him on the shin (he couldn't even reach the Decepticon's knee) just to make sure he didn't go unnoticed. When he bent down to the miniature mechanism, however, the Autobot Cassette looked up to him with an almost begging expression on his face.

"In person, then? Please?"

Sixshot cast him a questioning look.

"You said you wouldn't tell us about you granting mercy because you wouldn't want it to be on record. Here, I switched off my recorder. I won't be able to pass it on to anyone else. But I'm extremely curious to know what happened."

Now that was touching. The mechling's whole body language was shouting 'See? No weapons!' when he was talking to a mech who could have crashed his frame with one hand. And, off-switch or not, this once-a-civilian was arguably braver than half of the Decepticon army was. Sixshot sat down on the hill slope and watched silently as the Autobot climbed the rock to sit next to him.

"Please, Sixmech? What kind of trouble could Shockwave cause to you?"

"What do you know about primitives by definition, Rewind?" At least, he guessed this was Rewind. The inquisitive one.

"Primitives are Transformers who weren't given sentience by Primus. Their behavior is more predictable than that of regular Transformers, and more often than not they have animal-shaped alt modes, though having an animal alt is not pathognominic – see Laserbeak or Buzzsaw, for Decepticon examples. Their finesse usually doesn't show on everyday basis, many of them are not even compatible with Cybertronian speech programming. Another sign of their lack of connection to Primus is how well they can handle long separation from our home world." Rewind replied after a moment of thinking. "Have I left anything out?"

"Reluctance to acknowledge a non-primitive superior while they would follow another primitive's lead without hesitation" Sixshot added. "But I'm glad you mentioned their independence from Primus. You see, when the war broke out, many Transformers fled Cybertron, and primitives got the furthest from our home. For example, they established a settlement on Shinsha: a world of formerly unexplored resources." Sixshot explained. "Their colony was strong in firepower, but they couldn't organize any effective counter-attack. I was called in to save time. I... as Skyfire just pointed out, I was constructed to manage hostile aliens, not to eliminate those of my own kind for just being in the wrong place. I offered to relocate them to a dreary but safe moon of a formerly ignored planet. Some agreed to be relocated. The others were dealt with according to their choice."

"But you gave them a choice."

"Yes I did. And those on that tiny moon looked up to me as if I had saved them." Sixshot nodded. "Thinking back, it must have been because I used my wolf form all the time I was not flying. They must have considered me an honorary primitive."

"You use past tense when you're referring to them" Rewind pointed out. Sixshot ignored the comment.

"By the time I got back to Shinsha, the remaining primitives had prepared considerably for their fight. What I noticed too late, was that their leader had persuaded and encouraged them to fight but he fled from the battle. If he wasn't a neutral but a Decepticon , the Justice Division would have dealt with such treachery. I have... I think the correct expression for my behavior is 'dereliction of duty'. I didn't pay enough attention to the one mech fleeing. I only registered Metalhawk when Shockwave had also heard him calling me a merciless war drone for _mostly_ extinguishing their colony."

Rewind just nodded, not daring to say a word.

"Lucky for us, Shockwave was obsessed with further developing of gestalt technology and he wanted to test if building a primitives-only gestalt was possible. He told me that if I brought five of the survivors who could be useful Decepticons, this whole incident would be forgotten. Those five now seem to think I was some kind of hero who introduced them to a more interesting world."

"The Terrorcons?"

"Yes, the Terrorcons" Sixshot nodded, as if exposing his weakest spot. "I once promised that they would be safe, and I will not go back on my word." That was the most he was willing to admit. "Now you know how Abominus came to be."

Rewind realized it too late that this may have not been the best time to ask what happened to the other primitives in their new home world.

"I already told you more than I intended to" Sixshot said. "You share a quantum bond with Blaster, don't you?"

"He knows how to keep personal info inside our cohort. He doesn't talk about whatever he's read from you, either."

About that, Sixshot wasn't worried. He knew how his brain module was programmed. Peering into him for Decepticon data would wake him from enforced stasis – there was no way an Autobot spy could get any useful information out of a downed phase-sixer unless they faced a very awake destroyer immediately afterwards. Blaster should have been dead for trying.

"Then may I ask how the Prime knew I was low on cybertronium?"

Rewind looked at him in confusion – or in the mockery thereof.

"Perhaps he found out by himself that you have five different alt modes?"

The larger mechanism gave a more honestly confused look.

"I admit, the correlation between modes and needs is not that much of common knowledge" Rewind explained. "It wasn't until recently. We found out the hard way that cybertronium is essential for a Cybertronian's control over his own frame, so you must need a lot more of it than an average transformer."

Well, that sounded like a well made-up explanation. And who knows? He already suspected direct proportionality between his body's requirements and the number of alternative modes he possessed.

" Don't you believe me? Megatron had missed a clear shot at Optimus from about a meter or two. I can even show you the video of that, if you don't take it as offense against your leader."

Sixshot inwardly growled. He didn't come to this planet to see amateur recordings of Megatron's perhaps most embarrassing moment. Besides, he was a gunformer too (among many others), so he didn't feel like gloating over another gunformer's mishap.

"Perhaps there will come a time for that" he murmured, thanking and turning down the offer.

He wasn't directly looking at Rewind, but he was still aware of him sitting there next to him. The cassette was currently silent. Just a prison guard during a long and eventless shift...

Still not turning his face towards him, Sixshot gave the tiny mech a closer look. He noticed how similar their paint jobs were: white head, white arms and thighs, dark gray torso and shins. Only the teal highlights were not present on the tiny mechanism. But he had blue optics.

"You wanted to ask something."

Sixshot looked at the smaller robot.

"Did I?" Sixshot turned away from Rewind, staring into the rising Sun. He darkened his optics just like he would have before an explosion.

It was up to Rewind to break the silence. Of course he did.

"I wonder when I will see the Yggdrasill constellation again. Do you know that is the only zodiac that cannot be spotted but from Cybertron? The stars that form it are too far from each other in reality."

Sixshot inwardly frowned. If he was ever to go back to Cybertron, it would be for the one reason he didn't want to think about. He was meant to function far from his home, and he had accepted that fate as a minor detail of being upgraded to a phase-sixer. Him going back was a horrible thought and he prayed to Primus that it would never happen.

That didn't mean he wasn't homesick sometimes, and he was somewhat glad not to be the only one.

"I've been listening to your chatter for over an orn and this is the first time anybot from your cohort acknowledged something from our culture" he remarked.

Even with darkened vision, he could feel Rewind giving him a meaningful look. Fifty astrosecs, and the cassette finally broke.

"I know. Blaster tends to be so obsessed with the new that he pretends to have forgotten the old. Eject is purely sports-minded but there really isn't much in that on Cybertron for our frame type – so he only has Earth sports to focus on. Steelie and Ramhorn are primitives – we have already discussed that."

Sixshot stared at the rising Sun.

"Activate your recorder" he said. "I know I will be, some day, killed – hopefully in battle. This recording may be the only of me being a just a Decepticon, but not a warrior."

His next few sounds were so unexpected, at first Rewind didn't even realize he was listening to a Cybertronian ballad. The melodies were strange and familiar, upsetting and soothing at the same time, and Sixshot's noticeable Helican accent contrasted the obvious Tarnian origin of the song. It was the story of a fierce young miner who was once shown the direction of an energy crystal so powerful that it could have, allegedly, kept Cybertron's whole populace fuelled. (Sixshot secretly wondered why the storytellers insisted that the magnificent gem was green. But he wasn't too shy to mention that detail.) The miner was determined to get to the crystal, even though he knew it to be blocked in the middle of the planet and to destabilize in unworthy hands. The ballad gave a poignant description of the tireless miner's efforts to dig deeper and deeper into Cybertron's structure, and graphic account of his numerous battles against the beasts he encountered on his way. He overcame all obstacles and reached the planet core. But, determined and endurant as he was, on the long way down he diverged from the original course by a microradian – even though he thought to be going in the exact same direction, the diversion was enough that he missed the precious gemstone. Unwilling to stop, the miner carried on digging. He didn't realize that he was, with extremely hard work, getting further and further from the crystal he intended to claim. Finally he reached the surface and looked around on the other side of the planet... and he found it in darkness.

::Do you know who the miner was?:: Rewind asked afterwards.

Sixshot's sad smile was hidden by a large white battle mask.

"There are rumors."


	4. Phase 4

**Phase four – open encounters**

Once again, Optimus was glad that the space bridge was set up many miles from the Ark. Its location was chosen for strategic reasons – it was still relatively easy to defend, but it was safely away from the base if Decepticons suddenly started to land on Earth again. And, thankfully, the distance also permitted him to re-organize his thoughts after arrival.

His spark ached as he remembered Elita-One's beautiful frame in his arms. Now those same arms were tightly pulled into the cab's sides, and possibly he would need to use them to separate the fighting Dinobots or to fend off yet another Decepticon attack. It would be a long time until he can hold his sparkmate again.

He also remembered a handshake in his right arm. A trade agreement, not the first one, and hopefully not the last. Since the Autobots had secured their power base on Earth, supplies and raw material had been regularly transported to Cybertron in exchange for industrial products and materials that were not available on this otherwise rich planet. This time his cargo consisted mostly of Energon that was made from Earthen fossil fuel. The trade was somewhat obvious, and beneficial for both parties: Shockwave was keen on keeping up the fragile balance, since relying on Megatron's irregular spoils of war would have been illogical.

He remembered how up-in-arms Red Alert was when he was first told of this agreement, and how eager he was to come with him to Cybertron since Sixshot had been looming around the Ark. Optimus could tell Red was relieved to stay with the femmes and the recovering Ironhide instead of having to come back to Earth, where the overly effective Decepticon war machine was still around the Autobot base. It was not just convenient, but also useful to have the security officer with him: Red had spotted Ravage and Ratbat during the discussion. Their presence meant Soundwave might have also been close by, although they had not seen the recovering communication officer himself. He guessed that some particular materials he brought from Earth were to become replacement parts for the damaged blue carrier. He had done his part in delivering what was asked for, and he decided it was not the time to dwell into the ethics of trade agreements with an enemy officer.

As much as he should have been satisfied with the mutually beneficial agreement, he was angry at himself for not bringing Hound with him. The tracker was on Junk at the moment, trying to identify Ratchet's energy signature in the mess of communication being transmitted through the rust-covered planet. Maybe Hound could have spotted some track of the docbot on Cybertron. Maybe they would have picked up a clue. So far they only knew where **wasn't** the Autobot medic.

Optimus let out two long columns of smoke through his pipes, as if imitating a human sigh while on the roll.

Then he reset his truck-mode's optical sensors.

Then he wondered if fata morgana was an exclusively desert phenomenon, or the Ark and its surroundings were perhaps placed into a desert while he was away.

He rolled closer, but the vision remained.

Maybe it was Hound, trying to pull a hologram trick on him.

But no. Hound was on Junk.

Then this truly had to be Defensor and Sixshot at the tennis table. And Eject was truly sitting on the Decepticon's shoulder, holding on to one of his bright wings, cheering the mech to play it more seriously and show them what a speed drive hit really is.

"Tinyling, if I gave Defensor all I have, he would not be able to keep up with me" Sixshot explained. "Size and firepower are gestalt advantages, while good reflexes and combinative thinking are not."

"Try me, Sixmouth!"

"You're not in my league, gestalt."

Well. Defensor proved to be slightly more of an opponent than Sixshot was hoping for, and he had the guts (and sense of humor) to laugh it off when Sixshot slightly changed the aim of his hit and caused the agile tiny white ball to bounce off the similar-sized mech's gray chestplate.

It wasn't until the Protectobots separated to greet Optimus Prime that he noticed the return of the Autobot leader. He cooped Eject carefully up on one palm and deposited him on the ground, showing that he didn't mean to kidnap the brave little cassette. Optimus did not seem to resent the activity. The Decepticon caught a half-sentence that the Prime muttered as he rose to robot mode, something about Vector Sigma and oddities of creation in general.

The Autobots formed a respectful half-circle around him, greeting their leader in a polite yet informal manner. Sixshot noted the body language of the lower-ranking robots. Kibbles loose, heads turned slightly upwards, seeking optic contact while not radiating challenge nor fear. Shoulders almost sheer at the direction Optimus was coming from, not parallel like military protocol would have demanded. No weapons visible.

He took a step backwards. The Prime was not his superior to greet.

Prowl, the second in command, was giving his report in a compressed file, and some Autobots seemed to make awkward giggles as Prowl turned to point at the side of the Ark where a few tons of newly shattered rocks were laying. Yes, that was where Grimlock challenged the phase-sixer this morning. The dinosaur-sized foss at his optic level. That was where he not-so-gently placed... ugh, which one was the tri-horned dinobot? And the large pothole in the ground. That must have been where he had landed when Prowl offlined him.

The Prime didn't seem to be amused, if a facepalm was anything to go by.

::Hey, Sixmech!:: It was Eject's voice on Blaster's frequency. ::Time for you to laugh it off like a champ!::

He wordlessly thanked the advice, but kept his gaze on Optimus, who was looking at him in a similarly confused way. Blaster decided it was up to him to break the awkward silence.

"Hey, nobot reaped the whirlwind, Optimus."

"It was just... a sharp, short lesson" Sixshot added in a similar tone. He didn't actually see it, but he would have bet the cassettes twinkled at him.

"And it wasn't like Prowl just came and started screaming 'You won't believe the things I can do now!' if that's what's bothering you" Streetwise gave his testimony.

Optimus scratched his helm. His gaze fell on the Autobots around him, then he looked up at Sixshot (he had a feeling the mech was holding his wings deliberately in a manner to look even larger than he actually was) then back to the Autobots. To Prowl, who was supposed to keep the base running in his absence.

"What are you ALL playing at?"

The awkward silence deepened.

"Whoa. That was four furmanisms in a row" Eject said.

"Well and truly" Rewind agreed.

"Five!"

"And all this because Prowl brought me down to earth – literally?" Sixshot asked in a seemingly innocent manner.

"Sixy makes it six!" Eject announced.

Almost a joor later Sixshot was still wondering if he had ever witnessed (nevertheless, been part of) an improvised furmanism-battle among the Decepticons. Like table tennis, this was played in a cooperative manner, and it perfectly served its true aim – to take the edge of the oncoming debate and accusations. With Megatron in Prime's place, he guessed nor he nor Prowl would have got away with the morning events.

He wasn't sure what happened to the Dinobots after he dropped unconsciously to the ground. Last thing he remembered was him holding the stegosaur-bot by the tail like a mace, and smashing him into his own leader. And he found some of Swoop's broken kibbles later, when he was allowed to online, though he couldn't precisely remember what he had done to the flightframed mech.

He knew that they were functional, though. Wheeljack had even asked him to keep their processors busy again, so that they would hopefully stay put in the repair bay. One bored Dinobot could do enough chaos already, and he didn't want them to demonstrate what five were all too likely to do in Ratchet's sanctum.

::Me Grimlock king. But you Phase Six Con:: the most troublesome one aired, as if suggesting they call it a draw. ::King jaw still hurts:: he added.

::That's a side effect of trying to bite me, king:: Sixshot replied. ::If you attack me next time, I suggest you aim for the vulnerable parts::

::Me Grimlock not believe you not vulnerable::

::Me neither:: Sixshot hummed. :: Sometime I might even tell you how to bring down a 'Phase Six Con'::

It was late afternoon, and Sixshot was getting ready for the evening transform-ups behind the volcano when Optimus rolled to him, and transformed at a distance that still allowed the 'Con to take whichever form he chose to.

Sixshot almost always talked to Megatron in robot mode – which was convenient as long as he didn't have to appear in front of the Optimus-sized mech in person. Then their differences in size and physical power became too obvious. However, it had made Sixshot proud that whenever he was summoned, Megatron had ensured there was at least one more officer around, keeping a distance that (in theory) would have prevented him from suddenly opening fire at both of them.

Optimus, however, tended to come to him alone. As if the phase-sixer was just an everyday mech to approach. It felt almost like an insult, one he tried to ignore. He had to put his pride away and bear with the Autobot leader's behavior.

"I hoped to avoid incidents like this" Optimus started. He started to climb the hillside, and when he reached the desired height, he sat down and rested his hands on the rock beside him. Just like Rewind did a few joors before.

"I guess you're the only one who cannot be blamed for anything, now" Sixshot remarked. He also sat down, at the foot of the hill, trying to look just as casual as the Autobot who could end his life anytime if he wanted to. "Yesterday Skyfire asked me about the difference in the origins of Decepticons and Autobots. The more I think about it, the less I understand. How comes that your civilians are so much braver than many, many courageous warbuilds?"

Prime took a fresh cube of cybertronium-enriched energon, and gave it to the larger mech.

"I don't think it's courage that makes the difference. It's more like trust. Red Alert believes Eject was sitting on your shoulder when you were playing because he is a show-off and he wanted to demonstrate that he would take just as much risk as Rewind. I tend to accept Blaster's version instead: they both knew you didn't intend to hurt them. I thank you for your patience."

As if it was patience. It was basic military programming that the weapon was not allowed to activate before the time was right. Putting up with reckless micro-class mechs was just a necessary bad for him. Better entertainment than watching Decepticons flee from him all the time.

"Odd thing" the Decepticon finally admitted. "I was ordered here to finish off the whole Autobot presence on this planet. I was waiting for the go signal when Blaster broke into my brain."

With that, he bit off the corner of the cube and tasted the greenly shimmering fuel. Its scent was so strong, it must have been mined only an orn before.

"Megatron was planning a synchronized assault on all fronts reachable through space bridge" Optimus nodded. "He intended me to be just a klik late from each place, so that I could have seen what he was doing, but not be there in time to interfere. I think he wanted me to be the last."

"Then you know" Sixshot nodded, taking another sip from the excellent fuel. "Why?" he suddenly asked, lifting the cube just enough to indicate it was the object of his question. "I am no spy but that doesn't mean I was blind. Why do you take your resources to Cybertron and trade off at least a hundred shanix's worth to get me, a Decepticon phase-sixer, cybertronium?" He supposed that the Prime had some other business to do on their home planet too, but it still didn't compute. He was not running on energon, he told them soon after his capture. Cybertronium was a fuel of luxury for him. More often than not he had to trade it for himself, which wasn't very convenient for a tool of destruction who was feared and avoided even by his superiors.

"You're my guest for now" Optimus answered. "And maybe I just enjoy the sight of someone with a faceplate showing that they actually have a mouth under the cover."

They both chuckled at the impossible answer, and Sixshot downed the rest of the delicious fuel without asking further questions.

"Thank you, anyway" he said. "Would you mind if I did my transform-ups? One throwback of my frame is that it would get stiff if I stayed motionless for long."

Optimus shook his head. He had personal experience of being a brick.

"Would you mind if I watched?"

"Not at all."

He went through a series of ten transform-ups in all possible directions, then he performed no less than twenty circles of tank-robot-gun-car-spaceship-wolf. Somehow, it felt so easy to do now. His transformation cogs felt warm, but not much higher than their normal operating temperature. His parts folded together neatly, his joints were tense, his plates interlocked just the way his long-lost designers intended. His ununtrium-coated endostructure panels flipped in fluid, swift motion, his armor plates met in perfect angles – tightly enough to shield him from any physical impact, but following each movement of his unique endoskeleton not to thwart him in any movement he took.

When he finally went on to stretching, Optimus spoke up.

"As to your previous question. Do you know what I can see? Most importantly, a Cybertronian. A Transformer, if you don't mind. At a closer look, I can see a war victim, who had lost something precious to him. Only you can tell what it was. After that, I can see a noble warrior who could easily melt me into this rock, but doesn't, because he gave his word. Only after all these do I see the Decepticon, and it is only life experience that keeps reminding me of you being my enemy."

"The loss you have mentioned" Sixshot said while folding his left side into tank mode and his right into off-road car "is me becoming phase-sixer. We were so enthusiastic about it first. Result? Look at me. Your so-called noble warrior is crushing already-broken civilisations and makes it fast as an act of mercy. Blackshadow was a freelancer who lost his freedom in the process."

The sixformer changed position, and tried to force his left side into car mode while folding his right side into tank. "Overlord promptly turned down Megatron's invitation, and here's the irony of fate, he's the one who actually profited from it."

"You speak of this war as if you had expected it to be good for you" Optimus Prime remarked.

"There was supposed to be a balance. One party loses, the other wins. In theory. Very far from the truth."

The tank half fell apart gracelessly, and Sixshot was lying on his back in robot mode for an astrosecond.

"Don't get me wrong, I don't regret being who I am" he said. He sat up, then continued the motion with transforming into his wolf mode, only, he bent his knee as he would for space travel. He spread his shoulder joints aside as far as he could, and started to pull the elegant white (although currently dirt-covered) wings into a horizontal position. Something in his spaceship mode's engines clicked – and there he had it! The wingwolf. This wasn't the first time he successfully took this form, but surely it was the first in two decades or maybe more.

"But are you happy being who you are?"

"Was that intended to be a pointless question?" he said, somewhat hissing with the almost-unbearable pull of his own weight in both his shoulders and on the root of his wings. The longer time he would spend like this, the more his highly adaptive frame would accept the wingwolf form again. He hoped to be able to fly in this mode – but that would take an awful lot of practice. Lifting a gestalt-sized compact frame with joints that were designed to transmit his weight in the other direction... well, it was far from impossible, but he would have to learn to rearrange each tiny supporter stave in his back.

He would have continued his evening training, but the klaxons of the Ark screamed into the summer night. It wasn't the signal of Decepticon attack. There was something naturally occurring type of wrong in the Ark's proximity.

"What is it?" Optimus asked as the Protectobots raced out from their base.

"Wildfire" Blades replied. "Some idiot human must have been smoking again."

"Sometimes I have the feeling that as long as humans exist, I'm not needed on this planet" Sixshot muttered. It wasn't like he didn't envy the Autobot team, to be honest. They had something to do, some function to fulfill – even if it was only holding back a phenomenon that was the result of dry weather and local population's carelessness.

And Optimus wasn't blind to see that flash of envy.

"Do you want to go with them?"

Sixshot took off into the evening air without hesitation.

The wildfire looked honestly innocent compared to what he usually caused, but it was the first that he intended to put out. He watched Blades levitating above a wooden building, pushing the flames away with his rotor's wind, giving the humans enough time to safely get their youngling out. Groove rolled straight through the fire, searching for signs of lives that were about to perish. Hot Spot was pumping water on another building, one that the humans couldn't even approach in the heat. An officer-looking human held a quick briefing, using Streetwise's hood as the demonstration map. The Autobot passed on the information to his gestalt mates on a frequency that didn't interfere with any that the organics used.

::The wind is changing!:: a human warning crossed the common frequency.

::Scrap it!:: Blades replied on the gestalt freq. ::If the fire spreads North, it will cut off the whole village::

::And look what it will do to us::Streetwise added.

::Frag!::

A group of humans grabbed their primitive tools and started digging. For an astrosec, Sixshot didn't even understand what they were doing. But then he noticed that they were creating a perimeter by removing the dry grass from the ground. If the wind wouldn't get stronger, it would possibly keep the flames on the other side of the trench.

As subtle as he always was, he landed next to the humans in robot mode. His red optics radiated 'Get out of my way' just in case his verbal warning didn't come through.

Some screaming and unfamiliar curse words proved that he didn't go unnoticed. He dug his right heel into the furrow. Then, unbothered by the fire, he slowly backed in the direction of the other digging team, his heel leaving a trench twice as wide as the humans could produce. No fire would spread through here.

::Yay for size difference!:: Streetwise commed him.

::Like I said before, you are not in my league::

::Nice move:: Hot Spot agreed. ::Hey Sixmouth! Can you see First Aid?::

First Aid. The medic of the team, currently the only educated Autobot medic on Earth. And he was... hmmm... trying to secure a firefighter from under that pile of wood, in the middle of the area that was allowed to burn down?

A white and dark offroader crossed the flames, driving faster than a human car would on a well-built highway. The moment he arrived at the pile, he transformed into his slower but stronger tank mode, and pushed the tree trunks away from First Aid's way.

The medic scanned the man for damage.

::Two broken ribs, humeral fracture, a cracked right hip, and a mild concussion. Internal damage is likely:: he reported to the humans on the other side of the fire. ::He will be operable, once we get out from here::

Then, he looked up at the larger Cybertronian next to him. "Uh, how am I going to get him out of here? He will need to be stabilized in a lying position or else those broken ribs will puncture his lungs."

Sixshot ran a quick search on human medical education. That is a lung, and why shouldn't it be punctured by broken endoskeleton parts?

Ugh. Because that would severely worsen the chances of survival, if the human cannot exchange air and his inner fluid would be spilled. In other words, it was a big no, if he wanted the human to live. Well, he didn't. But First Aid did.

His tank mode folded into a lying wolf. He spread his large white wings, revealing the straight one-piece armor between them. First Aid got the hint and carefully placed the human male on the flat area. The wings rose back to their normal position, holding the human's body perfectly still.

"Climb up, you too" the wolf-beast said. "I don't understand why you chose to lengthen the human's suffering, but it's your choice. My choice is not to let you walk through a fire that would melt your fragile frame."

The human was safely delivered to the group awaiting on the other side. First Aid stayed with him, making sure he would arrive at the hospital where his fellow humans performed a four-hour-long surgery on him.

It was almost midnight when the Protectobots returned to the Ark, their job well done. It was almost midnight when Prowl noticed that Sixshot wasn't with them.

On the other side of the planet, it was almost noon. The great flat flying metal, that some might have recognised as a destroyer's spaceship form, was sweeping through a stormcloud, sometimes flying so low that the ocean's salty waves slapped over his whole body, cooling down his frame for a moment. After all that hassle at the wildfire, after cooperating with the Protectobots and digging out two locals from under the remains of an exploded fuel station, Sixshot enjoyed the quiet of finally being alone for a while. He really came to miss his usual loneliness, after those days of being surrounded by far too loud mechanisms. He relaxed into the silence, into the roar of the ocean thunderstorm. He gave in to the energy of the lightning that stuck him and knocked him out of the air for a while, and to the flow of the great water so unlike anything on the surface of Cybertron, yet so welcoming, so soothing, like a memory he didn't even remember he had.

It crossed his mind that most Cybertronians, knowing the unhealthy effects of acid rains, would probably fear this mildly salty water. He was sure he heard Seekers lamenting about the freshwater rain that caught them during a mission. He inwardly laughed at them, and called his faction a group of cowards. He would need to get a submarine alt mode sometime.

He sank to the bottom in robot mode, allowing his feet to reach the rocky seabed. He had to reset his sensors, to filter out the blue, and to increase the light sensitivity of his optics if he wanted to see anything. He walked several hics underwater, registering the push of the underwater flow. His audials received nothing but the distant song that sounded like slowed down bird-chirping. There was no radio reception down here, which made him feel unspeakably comfortable. He transformed into his tank mode to climb an underwater mountain range, and he noted how slower he managed the otherwise routine movement.

He would soon have to find a place where he could run a total defragmentation, he mused. He had been shut down twice in about as many orns, he knew he would have to cope with his processors' demands sooner or later. He didn't like the consequences of involuntary shutdowns, and he preferred to be really alone when he faced those side effects.

At least he was reactivated very soon after both occasions. It was worse to wake and realize he had overslept a vorn. Once Megatron had done that to him, and explained it briefly as a political act. He hated that feeling, but he could of course do nothing about it, afterwards. At least his leader was discreet about it, airing the code on a frequency nobot else could hear. Unlike Starscream, who had cried it out so loud that half the planet's populace had heard it. He would have bet that Blaster had access to him thanks to Starscream's... well, being Starscream.

Suddenly, an answer to his never-spoken question dawned on him. Why didn't Megatron order him to keep to the original plan and try to eliminate the Autobots? He could have taken out many of them in the matter of those three astroseconds that takes to say his shut-down code. There were so few Autobots on Earth, now that the fighting continued elsewhere. Prowl and Blaster were here to manage the trade of resources and the transport of supplies through the space bridge. Optimus was, most likely, here to keep an optic on the phase-six type prisoner. Gaining each other's trust might have been the Prime's plan, and he had nothing against it. His loyalty to the Decepticon Cause would not be compromised. Which was why the realization pained his spark: Megatron didn't order him to kill these Autobots, because without them there would be no way to set a new code in his processor. He would be as good as uncontrollable. And his leader didn't want to risk that. Why was he surprised?

He climbed out of the ocean on a tiny barren island. The storm was way behind him, the sun and the wind dried his frame until he could sweep off the salt from the metal. He then transformed into his spaceship mode, and took off, lazily following the sun's bright reflection on the dimply surface.

He registered a being. An organic inhabitant of the ocean, almost his size. Maybe it was larger than him, the reflections on the surface confused his visional analysis. The creature rose to the surface and ex-vented. It didn't seem to notice the similar-sized Transformer watching it, as it didn't swim away. It didn't even sink back to the normal depth of the water, but stayed close to the air, and ex-vented again in about a klik.

Sixshot wasn't the only one to notice the creature. Other mammals, those of the so-called intelligent kind, were approaching on their primitive vessel, pointing forward a block of metal that started in a sharp bearded blade and continued in an almost Transformer-sized cannon.

So this is how it goes, he noted. Megatron's infamous infiltration protocol focused on one or at maximum two dominant species of a world. Once that one breed was under Decepticon control, the planet they owned was no longer theirs. Phase zero, the sixformer nodded silently. The stage when one species of the planet eliminates the others. No Decepticon presence needed, they simply have to let the inevitable happen.

Primus, this planet was more backward than he had initially thought.

The creature breathed yet again, starting to move out of the way of the vessel. It flapped a pair of large blue fins as it convulsed, and sank a metric deeper. The humans on the ship cheered at the easy prey. Sixshot harrumphed. The graceful, large organic was going to become prey of the fragile, withdrawn creatures that could have got nowhere without their laughable drone. Their physical weakness reminded him of the quintessons who were only loud and powerful as long as they controlled disregarded, superior beings. As a Transformer, he could easily relate to anyone downlooked by quintesson-like slimepiles.

Perhaps this was what Optimus Prime was preaching about while he was stretching.

The torpedo-shaped blue being convulsed again, and as it rolled to its side, Sixshot could see a second, smaller set of fins on the organic's underside. Which didn't make sense, as all whale types, according to his knowledge of the mudball planet, came with a similar body type with only one, horizontal tail fin. Their sizes and shades differed, but not their structure. They were also supposed to swim much faster than this specimen. What was going on?

Optimus Prime commed him in the very moment he understood the situation.

::Sixshot where in the rust-eaten frag are you? Answer me!::

Sixshot aired back his exact coordinates, and enclosed a visual recording of the she-creature.

::Return immediately and leave that whale alone:: Prime replied with some relief in his tone. Sixshot wasn't sure if he had not heard Hot Spot say "He's sightseeing" in the background.

Sightseeing, eh? With a second thought, he sent another visual recording of the whale and the armed vessel heading towards her. He knew how harshly Megatron would have protested, (hence he never asked for permission if he could help it) and he was tempted to test if Optimus would do the opposite.

::Requesting permission to interfere:: he added.

There was a moment of confused silence over the radio. He flew high above the organics, and took a stillshot of an unworthy fleshling as he was aiming the oversized cannon at the whale in labor. Optimus Prime wanted his trust? Fine! He trusted him with a piece of information he was careful not to let his own leader know: he had a soft spot for livestrong younglings yet too weak to fend for themselves, and he bore a grudge against those who would attempt to hurt them.

::And Megatron has you down as the mech who cannot negotiate?:: Prime answered with an intonation of glee, and... either Sixshot had misread it, or it was pride. A moment later Optimus added ::But please don't kill the whalers::

::Can I at least sink their ship?:: Sixshot asked. Then, not waiting for the answer, he maneuvered his spaceship body exactly above the center of the vessel. Even if he would be shot down, no-one would be able to stop him.

He crashed the ship faster than freefall. The humans couldn't even see what hit them, only that their miserable barge was suddenly broken in two in the middle, and both halves were sinking rapidly as the seawater roared into the cargo holds.

After the impact he looked back at the she-whale, and noticed a cloud of dark red liquid around her. Was she hurt? Was he the destroyer too late to eliminate the hunters' ship? If so, he was really out of shape.

::Returning to the Ark now:: Sixshot messaged, once he got up in the air again. Behind him, the halves of the ship sank below the almost still surface of the innocent-looking ocean.

He heard the familiar breathing, but a lot weaker than before. He turned around, and saw the same tiny tail fin he had noticed earlier – the tail fin of the newborn whale as it dove under. The she-whale surfaced too, waving her fin as if to show they were both doing okay.

::I'm on my way:: Sixshot aired again. He mused for an astrosecond at the sudden appearance of other sea-creatures. Some of them resembled Rippersnapper's alt mode, but without the legs. Whatever these would do to the sunken whaler ship's crew, he guessed it won't be comfortable... but that was not his business.

He wondered how strange Optimus sounded over the radio. He'd effectively got used to the Prime talking to him in person almost as much as he got used to Megatron talking to him through long-range communicators. He might as well start to feel the size difference to be uncomfortable. Not that he couldn't have overcome the issue by taking his wolf mode, but he was certain it would come across as an insult. Beast modes weren't usually meant for interaction and intelligent behavior. At a whim he decided to test the Prime's reaction to the offense.

As he flew over the Autobot's space bridge not far from the Ark, he spotted the mostly red Blaster and a golden feline-formed cassette. They seemed to be waiting for someone, and, judging from the way their weapons were readied, they weren't expecting to see long lost friends. But why didn't they just power down the space bridge if they wanted to avoid unwelcome visitors?

Sixshot crossed the morning sky, following the distant blue light that he knew to be the Matrix of Leadership, exposed to the Sun during Optimus Prime's peaceful morning ritual. The Decepticon was somewhat unhappy to have missed most of it. There certainly were a few aspects of his captivity that he would miss after the exchange. He transformed from spaceship to wolf in the air, trying to uphold the intermediate wingwolf form as long as possible. When he landed, he trotted proudly around the volcano and sat down at a distance that still allowed plenty of personal space for both of them.

The Prime just cast a quick glance at him, and turned back to the rising Sun.

"Thank you for coming" he said when the lightsource rose above optic level. He turned to the large metallic wolf, and, when Sixshot didn't seem to want to transform into his usual robot mode, he reached out to the unsuspecting sixformer and patted the wolf-head as if it belonged to an overgrown puppy.

Sixshot never transformed this fast before.

"Being a prisoner is one thing" he gestalt-sized robot growled. "You have some power over me because I am a phase-sixer and you know my stand-down code. But keep away from my battle wounds. One and last warning."

The Prime stepped back immediately.

"Last time you told me about your armature that was forged from metals drawn from the compacted subatomic matter of a collapsed star, you forgot to mention that you were ticklish."

No. Not ticklish. Sixshot transformed back, careful to stay out of arm's reach.

"Can you see the erosions now? Those are reminders of a run-in with those who were specifically built to be able to take down even a phase-sixer. I survived that battle. Not all of _them_ did."

Optimus Prime wordlessly nodded. He didn't seem to be in the mood to ask for details.

"Still no news about my release?" the Decepticon suddenly asked. Not that he had expected any. "I guess I won't be needed for a while" the wolf continued, as if to himself. Why did he come back to the Ark, anyway? To be around for yet another humiliation? With every passing day, he found it harder and harder to pretend to be patiently waiting. His lifeline and only anchor to sanity was the radio connection to his prison guards – and that couldn't replace the Terrorcons' company.

"Tell me, Sixshot: do you believe in coincidence?" Optimus unexpectedly asked.

"Why?" he asked back dryly.

"Just after you set off to break the whaler ship, I was contacted by the Galactic Council." The wolf's immediate growl indicated Sixshot's opinion about the organization. "I agree, but they ARE the Galactic Council."

This much Sixshot knew. Also, the ten million shanix bounty they would pay for any phase-sixer's severed head. He quit growling, but his optics locked on to Optimus as if to force him to continue.

"The discussion was short, however. They wanted me to hand you over to them, and when I told them my conditions, they cut the connection."

The sixchanger pinned his wolf-mode's ears back. There was a very clear threat in what Optimus was saying. If Megatron doesn't hurry up and agree to the exchange soon, Sixshot might be sold to the highest bidder.

"You know, before the war, Cybertronians were a respected and welcomed species. We didn't just have a solid place in the Galactic Council, but the then leader, Guardian Prime, was also an honored member of the League of Negotiators. He achieved numerous compromises that both parties considered acceptable and many of his agreements stayed in effect long after he died. Simultaneously with our war, however, the Negotiators were first reduced to be diplomats of the Galactic Council, then they became simple delegates without the authority and autonomy they once had."

Sixshot cast a cold wolf-gaze on the Autobot leader. Undermining the League's status and compromising its members took the best Decepticon agents hundreds of vorns.

"As a leader of a faction at war, the Council would never accept me as a negotiator" Prime continued. His tone was resigned, and deliberately non-threatening.

Sixshot remembered his earlier words about his own conditions. The Galactic Council turned him down, for now, but it was only a matter of orns and they would contact him again.

"You want me to be your entrance fee" the huge metallic wolf finally said.

"No. I want you to be our representative."

The wolf transformed back to the gestalt-sized robot, perfectly stunned by the offer.

"Excuse me?" he snarled in a resonant, deep tone.

"You prefer taking on new challenges while there's hardly anything for you in _fighting_ that you could call a challenge" Optimus explained. "Besides, I'm not saying you wouldn't have to be armed and alert all the time."

"This idea is the most insane I have ever heard of" the Decepticon said.

Optimus looked up at the giant. "All I ask is that you consider. Just like they are doing, right now."

A soft ping from under the Prime's blue helmet indicated an incoming call. His kind, Matrix-blue optics glittered as he received Blaster's message.

"Tell them we're on our way. Thank you, Blaster. And thank Ramhorn and Steeljaw for me." With that, the Autobot leader dropped into his semitruck form and rolled out for the space bridge. "Come, and don't take your beast mode if you don't want to spoil the surprise."

Optimus was driving to the space bridge at a steady but comfortable speed. Of course, the Decepticon _had_ to take back his wolf form. Not that he'd expected otherwise.

The light eastern breeze brought a horrible reek, and Sixshot inwardly frowned. This must have been his processors finally breaking down. Why else would he hallucinate Blot's unmistakable odor? He must have been captive for too long, if he was even missing the hygienically challenged Terrorcon's otherwise unbearable smell.

As they got out from the forest and trees no longer interfered with any sensors, Optimus Prime could see the crowd at the space bridge. All five Dinobots were there, as well as Steeljaw and Ramhorn, the latter giving his more detailed report to Blaster while Steeljaw was switching off the transferring device. And, of course, the five guests were present too, a little bit still disoriented after landing on a planet they have never visited before. Sixshot blasted off into the morning sky in his recently re-discovered wingwolf mode, and covered the almost three hics distance in a matter of astroseconds.

The large metallic Algean dragon greeted the landing wolf with honest enthusiasm: the white and purple, wingless beast wrapped both long necks around Sixshot's, the two ever-hungry heads rubbed against the armor on his back. He was soon followed by an orange orthrus, a gray and blue biped shark and a dark blue ogre. The team's only flier, the fire-colored harpy circled around them, unable to decide whether to greet his idol like the others or to leave the scene and tear something (or more preferably: somethings) apart.

"What are you doing here?" Sixshot asked.

"A kamion mondta, hogy unatkozol" the leader replied. "Mogorva meg idehozott minket."

"Me Grimlock king. Terrorcons follow king through space bridge" the Dinobot proudly interrupted.

Well, that explained how they got here (not that it wasn't obvious), but Hun-Gurr's words also hinted that the gestalt group came without Megatron's approval.

"You have not missed anything important, yet" Rippersnapper told him. "We were on idle downtime for cycles. There is not enough momentum in the fights right now. Well, Megatron announced Phase Four on the yautja. An exceptionally disgusting breed, if you ask me, but at least they're big enough not to frighten Sinnertwin. Aww, come on, I'm sure you won't be left out of the fun. We know that you signed up for that mission long ago."

Indeed. Besides, he knew that the yautja had to be handled very carefully, and he expected phase four to take months. He very much hoped to be free by then.

"In other news, one of the Division members was killed, presumably by the Wok" Sinnertwin told him. He and Cutthroat were the two loudest fans of the Decepticon Justice Division, for that team was known for their savagery and brutal effectiveness.

"Which one?" Sixshot asked, mostly to fake some interest.

"Kaon. He was the tracker" Cutthroat replied. "No robot knows details. Believe me, we asked."

"What we know is that he was last seen with the Constructicons, working on an energy shielding project under direct orders from Megatron. When they were done, Kaon took a shuttle to rejoin the Division, but he never arrived."

So much about public security, Sixshot said to himself. Extra-Cybertronian species seemed to have gotten impertinent in his absence.

"On to much funnier news" Rippersnapper grinned. "Gossip has it that idiot Metalhawk criticized Megatron's infiltration protocol in the middle of Axiom Nexus. Who knows whether this is true or not, but you taught me that there always is some kind of truth behind all myths."

"There tends to be" Sixshot corrected him.

"If it is true, the whole plan was spoiled on a multiversal level" Blot pointed out. "I wonder what Old Buckethead's reaction will be."

"Stop calling your leader names."

Meanwhile, Optimus had thanked and congratulated the Dinobots for bringing the Terrorcons. He could not tell how long they would stay, but for now, they seemed to prefer Sixshot's company to mindlessly running amok on the planet. But he wanted to make the conditions clear as soon as possible, so he stayed back and watched from a respectful distance as the members of the first primitive gestalt reunited with their idol. Primus, he was over his head in this. Not only did he have to figure out what to do with a phase-sixer on the long term, but said phase-sixer came with his adoring fan group. Separating them would have been a very bad idea. Optimus had to prepare for the worst case scenario. He had to face the possibility of Ratchet being killed before the Autobots could get him back. In that case, Sixshot would belong to neither factions. According to Skyfire, the large mech was built for expansion, so maybe he would agree to leave the explored space and not to come back until the war is over. He also had to take Blaster's point into account: sending him alone would be top-most cruelty. Sending the Terrorcons with him was up to the five monster-shaped bandits.

As he rolled down the road, musing, he realized it too late that the Terrorcon leader sneaked up behind him. One astrosecond, the area seemed clear, but in the next moment, a two-headed, flightless dragon stormed at his trailer, apparently hungry to eat up whatever was inside. Optimus transformed to robot mode, axe in his hand while the trailer was immediately subspaced. Hun-Gurr was confused at the sudden disappearance of two-third of his prey and assumed lunch, but he didn't hesitate long before attacking the Prime. Optimus turned around to face him, then squinted as the dragon was picked up from the ground by the tail and was lifted to the optic level of a gestalt-sized destroyer.

"Rakj le de azonnal!" the dragon's both heads demanded. Instead, Sixshot held him firm by the tail like a pendulum, as if he hadn't understood what Hun-Gurr was saying. When the beast finally gave up and Optimus put away his axe, he was placed back on the ground.

"Viselkedj" Sixshot said meaningfully.

"Rendben..." Hun-Gurr murmured. "Bocs."

Optimus gave a quick salute, and wondered, not for the first time, why Megatron lacked confidence in Sixshot's negotiating abilities. He could be very convincing if he wanted to be. The trailer reappeared as he took back his semitruck form, and the leader of the Autobots rolled away as if nothing just happened.

Sixshot noticed that he was left alone with his fanboys and an offlined space bridge. Maybe here was the chance he was waiting for? Well, not quite.

"Is there anything to do on this world?" Cutthroat impatiently asked.

"Not much" the larger mech replied. "There are organics killing other organics. I got permission to step in, but I'm sure that isn't what you want to do."

"Pedig nem hangzik rosszul" Hun-Gurr replied. "Szervest eddig nemigen ettem, de nem lehet rossz."

"Blot will like it" Rippersnapper added.

"What will I like?"

With the worst timing, Hun-Gurr's communicator activated. The holographic device projected Megatron in front of them, and the great leader didn't seem to be impressed.

"Uram?"

::Terrorcons. Get back to your posts IMMEDIATELY. Sixshot has been taken hostage by the Autobots, but it isn't your task to free him."

Before the Terrorcon leader could have answered his superior, Rippersnapper transformed back into his robot mode and promptly told the Decepticon leader that they had left their ship at Pova and the space bridge they came through had been deactivated after their arrival. Their only means of travel was Sixshot's spaceship mode.

It was overstepping (big time), but Megatron seemed to have prepared for the excuse.

::Astrotrain will pick you up. Board as soon as he gets there::

Before the hologram of the angry-as-usual warlord would have disappeared, Sixshot stepped into sensor range. He was certain that his own communicator was monitored and possibly filtered, but he hoped to have a few words with his commander.

":Sir, I'm still..."

::Sixshot. You will stay where you are until I get what I want from the Autobot medic. Take no other action until Soundwave gets you back::

The hologram disappeared, leaving a group of angry Terrorcons and a frustrated destroyer.

"Nincs igaza" the white Algean dragon said immediately.

"You are worth a lot more than any Autobot, and he should know that" Cutthroat proclaimed.

"Besides, Soundwave isn't in that bad shape anymore" Rippersnapper continued. "He is sending his cassettes on missions again, and we know Ravage wouldn't leave him if he was about to offline."

"But Megatron doesn't need Ratchet to repair the communication officer, does he." Sixshot wanted to avoid confusion. "Shockwave must be doing that work."

"Yes. Ratchet's current location is top secret and we don't even know who to ask. "

"Szerintem a Szerkesztettek tudnak valamit."

"But we don't know where they are, either."

Sixshot looked up at the mackerel sky. Astrotrain was already in sensor range – as much as the triplechanger feared him, he was not going to oppose Megatron, either.

"Don't try to steal Ratchet for me" he strictly told them. "Promise me that you won't try."

"Nem hagyhatunk itt!" Hun-Gurr protested.

"Nem lesz semmi bajom" Sixshot reassured them. He was a lot more worried about them doing something stupid. "No provoking the DJD in my absence, understood?"

They all nodded; some with two heads at the same time. The purple Decepticon train/shuttle landed next to them, and covered the group in dust. The newcomer's manners were same as usual: he produced a greeting that could be understood as formal, or mocking, or simply fearful.

"Greetings, Astrotrain."

Hun-Gurr gave one last try.

"Gyere te is!"

Sixshot looked at the red semitruck pulling a gray trailer in the distance. Hopefully, the mech would need him for a prisoner exchange very soon.

"Nem lehet" he answered. He stepped back, watching as the group settled in Astrotrain's hold. "Take care of yourselves."

That evening the phase-sixer turned off the radio channel to the Autobot common room, and spent the night staring at the distant stars. One group of functioning Transformers consisted of civilians, while the others were cowards. Which side did he want to belong to? Would his loyalty shatter, the Terrorcons would follow him. Other than them, what bond did he have to the Decepticons? They made use of his bloodthirst, but he could have been just as useful as a Reaper. Besides, the Prime was right: he didn't have much left in destruction. There were no enemies who could have stopped him, save for his stand-down code which was Megatron's souvenir.

The wind brought the howl of a wild wolf from far away. It was a call for camaraderie and an open announcement of the oncoming hunt. Sixshot transformed back to robot mode to prevent himself from answering that call.


	5. Phase 5

**Phase five – end of secrecy**

A bright blue bolt of thunder lit the Prime's way as he crossed the mud and crawled out of the once-dry riverbed to the opening where a very large pile of hapless metal retreated from Autobot attention.

The past two days were eventless. Perceptor had arrived to give Wheeljack a hand in some new project. Red Alert had officially declared that he would not take any responsibility if anybot keeps being careless and stays in a phase-sixer's shooting range. Hound had reported Starscream launching raids from Rigel V, but his base of operations was yet to be found. Later it turned out to be a fortress that was only accessible from the air. The Aerialbots volunteered to give it a closer look, but Optimus told them to keep searching for Ratchet instead. A Monacusian bank was robbed and the only word of the aftermath was that the thieves had been dealt with. Kaon's disappearance was semi-officially confirmed when _four_ Decepticons were witnessed dismembering Trypticon. There had been no other news until this horrible, rainy night.

The wind was howling between the rocks and the large trees, throwing broken branches and some litter on the muddy red chassis. Optimus rose to robot form and continued his way on foot. The mud reached his knees, and the million raindrops whirred on his armor as if trying to warn him to stay away.

In the blackness of the night, he could see a faint green light shimmering through the shower. As he approached, he could see Sixshot lying on his back with his limbs twisted into a grotesque and obviously uncomfortable stack of offroader (or tank?) parts. The movable plates of the dark gray chest armor were all lose, and there were enough fissures and acid-burns on the inner shields that the intense green spark's brightness was detectable under the supposedly indestructible endostructural panels. The metal that once sealed the destroyer's core hermetically was now visibly bent and used and leaky as countless battles have left smaller or larger holes in it. The green spark convulsed each time a droplet seeped under the damaged, exposed plating. If only physical pain could alleviate the pain of the soul.

"You've come to express your condolences?"

What could have Optimus Prime said?

"Yes."

"Thank you."

The larger mech sat up, turning his white wings to at least partially shield the Prime from the uncomfortable weather. Other than those two words, he said nothing for a breem. Finally, Optimus broke the silence.

"I think I know what they meant to you. I won't pretend to have liked them, but I'm very sorry for the loss."

"Do you know what happened to them?" Sixshot finally asked. When Optimus shook his head, the sixchanger explained.

"The yautja are dreaded and respected species of our galaxy. Megatron has always planned to destroy them, but he knew he had to be very careful and subtle. The Galactic Council is seeking their favor constantly, out of fear and because they are the ones called in whenever a worse-equipped world needs pest control. They pose as noble warriors, but it isn't beneath them to make war on a small child, considering him 'armed' because of a puny shooter he's holding on to in panic. They are to be handled with great care, for they are spread all around the known galaxy, and we would get a vengeanceful enemy in our backs if we would simply pull their homeworld out of the equation. As far as I know, the plan was to isolate them on the interplanetar political playground, to make them look untrustworthy and weaker than they want to appear to be. We were proceeding slowly, when that idiotic busybody Metalhawk uncovered most of the infiltration process. He didn't just ruin half a vorn's work. I know Metalhawk. He wouldn't have settled until he rallied a whole interplanetary alliance against us. What Megatron chose to do, and I can't bring myself to blame him for this, is that he convinced the yautja that we're not nearly as much of a threat as we appear to be. He loudly announced phase four on them, and then sent a small team of primitives to fight a species that can only be defeated by outsmarting them. Hun-Gurr's team had no chance."

Through the rain, Optimus Prime looked into a pair of pained red optics. He wondered what could have been different if Sixshot knew about this plan when Megatron summoned the Terrorcon team back to duty. Also, he remembered Blaster telling him that the gestalt group was Sixshot's only company, and the sole reason he didn't become a mindless killing machine like many other powerful Decepticons.

"I know you will refuse, but if you'd ever choose so, you are always welcome to join us. This is all I can present."

Sixshot thanked the offer, but declined it. He had always been a Decepticon, and loyalty tied him to Megatron, the warrior he chose and swore to follow. Betraying his leader wouldn't have brought his friends back. And, what he didn't say loud: the only Cybertronian he could blame for the Terrorcon's demise was the soft-sparked lazy idiot who let Metalhawk slip from the colony on Shinsha. Pushing that responsibility to his superior was a weakness he would have despised beyond measure.

He sat waist-deep in the mud, rain knocking on his armor. He could see the Prime was not nearly as adapted against the watery environment, yet the red and blue Autobot still stayed with him during the long night, taking shelter from the storm under white ununtrium-coated wings and bright teal marks on an almost-unstoppable warmachine.

The cloudy black sky paled to a sick grayish color as morning came. Rain kept falling, although the fancy lightning and pompous roars of thunder stopped. Optimus could barely make out the silhouette of the Ark in the fog. The Sun came up without being seen.

There was an unexpected, but very polite ping on the Prime's communicator: the still motionless sixformer was sending him a sketch-quality picture file. He opted to see it, and then hummed quietly.

"Thank you, Sixshot." In fact, that was a magnanimous offer, but also a request that he knew would have freaked out not just Red Alert, but many braver Autobots too. But if Sixshot had wanted to kill him, he could have done so many times by now. "I think it's time for me to trust a phase-sixer. Right?" he asked, almost mockingly.

The large robot beside him wordlessly turned into a very muddy spaceship. He wasn't near Omega's size, but he wasn't as enticing, either. Optimus first stepped on a soaked white wing, then on powerful rocket engines that activated right under his feet. Sixshot took off from the ground, and the Prime had to hold on with both hands and with the built-in magnets of his feet as they crossed the storm clouds. But then, it was all worth it: in just one minute they reached the upper surface of the vapors, and many colors of a wonderful dawn welcomed them. Unlike the drumming rain down there, here everything was quiet.

"It's beautiful" Prime gasped.

"Beautiful, but always the same. I have seen it so many times. But I admit, the clouds cover even the ugliest scrapheaps."

Once out of the tempestuous zone, he slowed down so that the Autobot could stand up on his deck. The Matrix of Leadership was shining as the Optimus's freshly-washed armor glittered in the first rays of the rising Sun. How long since he served a Prime? He remembered Nova. He was so different... a determined, cunning warrior with a real cause to follow. His strength in body and will was worth more than the combined strength of all the leaders who came after him. But Primus had accepted this substitute over a hundred thousand vorns ago, and Sixshot could see some of his god's reasons by now. He also wondered how Megatron would have reacted if he'd witnessed the phase-sixer's loyalty bending while comparing the three of them. What would the Decepticon warlord do if he was told that Optimus Prime made him look like a coward?

The civilian Prime was standing on his deck, embracing the nearest star's light, while holding on to him with only a pair of magnets. It wouldn't have taken much effort to kill him, now. A flip to one side, and the truckformer would have been a pancake with Matrix filling. Instead, he was balancing the enemy carefully on his deck, and when Megatron tried to contact him, he simply pretended not to hear it. For as much as he cared, his leader was out of sensor range.

The impatient call repeated, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Whatever Megatron wanted, it could wait until the Prime was safe on the ground after his ritual. Priorities.

And it wasn't like Optimus answered the call coming from inside the volcano, either. He waited until the Sun rose high and the Matrix settled back next to his spark. The symmetrical chest plates closed, and only then did he reply to his fellow Autobot's panicky sounds.

"What is it, Perceptor?"

"Prime! We have another one!"

"What?"

"My new scanner just gave me another green spot. And it's approaching fast."

Sixshot turned around, and on the southern sky, they could see a tiny black dot approaching. It looked like a meteor, only darker. Optimus wished the clouds didn't cover Perceptor's vision, but since they did, he had to rely on his own two optics. From what he could make out...

"Primus..."

"No, his name is Blackshadow."

"Wheeljack! First Aid! Perceptor! Prepare the medbay immediately. Autobots, clear the way from the main entrance to the medbay. Red Alert, switch off the cameras in that area. Yes you heard me right!"

Later, Sixshot spent hours trying to figure out how Optimus Prime knew. Back then, he didn't care. All he could see were Blackshadow and the two horribly mutilated Decepticons on the destroyer's spark's support, one still fluttering his wings, the other hardly more than a silvery spark connected to some cognitive hardware. Anyone not familiar with Cybertronians' biology would have declared both of them dead junk. The difference could be measured in breems. Minutes, possibly.

"This way!"

There were no questions asked. Everyone seemed to know their place: those who were needed, were in the medbay, while those who couldn't help stood aside and didn't interfere with the repair crew's work. Suddenly the ragtag civilian band looked more disciplined than the best army a warlord could ever dream of. Perfect precision, no asking why. No saying "pointless".

First Aid separated Cutthroat's remains from Blackshadow's structure and immediately connected him to an outer support device which also allowed him access to the most unreachable, energon-covered contraptions.

On the other workbench, Wheeljack was doing his best to stabilize what was once the inside of... well, not even Sixshot could tell which one. All they could guess was that the outside plates and all the identification kibbles had been peeled off by a professional's sharp leathering tools.

First Aid listed the damage report of his patient. A direct shot in the spark chamber, either from a very thin laser or through a thick piece of armor. Broken cosmitron, missing transformation cogs. Helm precisely separated from the brain modules, with the core hardware still intact while the memory banks were all missing along with the cranial shields. Spark fuel at an estimated twenty percent of the capacity.

"Judging from his spark activity, it was minimum at eighty percent, but I believe it was more" he finished. "What do you have there?"

"Jackie is connecting him to a communication module right now" Perceptor replied.

"Cognitives are cut from any own processing modules" Wheeljack listed. "Triad connections all severed. Concussive spark damage, it was either specific interference or a direct hit from a sonic weapon."

"Direct hit above the spark chamber" Perceptor corrected. "Look at all these fractures in the endostructure."

"Spark?" First Aid asked.

"Strong but unstable."

"Analyze their spark fuels, Perce."

As if the two deadly Decepticons weren't in the room. Sixshot felt a little bit looked through. He was only needed when Wheeljack finally connected his patient to the communicator and a pained "Mindennek az a rozsdalepte stukker az oka" could be heard.

"I think he's referring to Megatron" the sixformer said. "Hun, hallasz engem?"

"Az a rozsdahalom azt mondta... hazudott."

"Tudom. Mint mindig. Figyelj, Hun-Gurr."

"Sima feladat... de belehalunk. Az a rozsdahalom stukker..."

"Hun, nem hagyom, hogy..." Sixshot started, but he was interrupted.

"Belehalunk!"

Beside him, Perceptor came to the same conclusion.

"I think those wounds are fa..." Wheeljack didn't let him finish the sentence.

"Do you have their spark fuel compatibility analysis?"

"No, but those wounds..."

"Perce, we needed those charts for YESTERDAY!" Wheeljack bursted out with a volume that even forced Blackshadow several steps backwards.

"No need for shouting" First Aid interfered. Then, he looked Sixshot in the wolf-eyes.

"I know that you're a professional at extinguishing sparks, but I don't know how much you know about nurturing them. When a spark is placed in a frame, at its first interaction with energon, it creates a liquid that is later referred to as 'innermost energon' or 'spark fuel' or sometimes improperly as 'spark energon'. Once in the frame, a spark can only very slowly adapt to changes of this liquid. With regular Transformers, compatibility usually isn't much of an issue, but primitives' sparks are a lot more diverse and... it isn't likely that either of their sparks would accept fuel from any of us. Currently, the only thing we know is that they are members of the same gestalt. Whenever they combined, their sparks practically connected into a common, may I say, sixth spark."

This much Sixshot knew. Overcoming the spark compatibility differences was the main challenge for Shockwave. Perhaps it was the reason why he built Abominus.

"What I'm about to say is that there's very little chance that we can save them both. We can try normal spark energon and artificially modify it to be more similar to theirs, but I'm afraid it would do more harm than good."

And who would the donor be? This wasn't about sparse droplets symbolizing a sentimental get-well wish, but a genuine dose that would leave the donor thirsty until his spark adjusts and that wasn't said to be a comfortable process, either. Sixshot's own spark was sealed under ununtrium armor, so was Blackshadow's. Their frames very effectively prevented both of them from saving another life. They were phase-sixers, period.

Beside them, Perceptor plugged into the nearest terminal of Teletraan, and displayed his findings on the large blue monitor. The sparks of Hun-Gurr and Cutthroat were similar indeed, although the differences were visible also.

Then came the longest astroseconds, spent with futile prayer and silent promises. Teletraan scrolled through possible donors for them – and only beeped once.

"Sky Lynx" Wheeljack shook his headbitterly "is forty solar reks from the Andellor space bridge. He wouldn't get here in time."

The whole Ark fell uncomfortably silent. There was no electric chatter, no casual file transfers from one robot to another. Not one whispered word. Those still hoping were waiting for yet another match, a beep of hope that would indicate that one of them was able to help.

No such beep was heard, only the humming of an external spark support and the crackle of the communicator to which Hun-Gurr's remains were connected. The large white-headed wolf trotted to the smaller workbench, and pushed his nose to Cutthroat's spark casing. He could see the lethal hole in it, now caulked with cyberium alloy. He could see how little spark fuel there was left in him, while the remains were still covered in his spilled regular energon.

"Hun-Gurr's spark is destabilizing" Perceptor warned. First Aid put down the tube of medical-grade propex he was holding, and walked to the other side of Cutthroat's bench, so that he was yet again looking into the wolf's glowing eyes.

"I know this is hard for you, but you have to choose. We are no miracle workers, and we only have time, parts and resources to save one of them. In this situation, I fear not even Ratchet could offer you more. If we dry Hun-Gurr's spark, Cutthroat will have a chance to survive until we can build a new frame for him. Or we can try to stabilize Hun-Gurr, in which case he might be given some time, but you have to know he is beyond repair. All three of his triad, the brain module, the transformation cogs, and the spark are damaged – I think you know what this means. Cutthroat's brain module is intact, only his memories are gone. He cannot transform, but I have seen mechs being successfully put into modified stasis in their alts – far from convenient, but it's doable. But we can't do anything for the leader on the long term. I suggest we dry him, or we will lose them both."

The wolf looked at the mostly red medic, then, at Hun-Gurr who was still muttering about the rust-covered popper who told them this would be an easy mission. Without the usual amount of fuel supporting it, Cutthroat's spark started to fade in front of their optics. The wolf turned to the almost unconscious Hun-Gurr, then looked back at the medic again.

Years ago, he was offered a place in the world if he was willing to eliminate the Terrorcons. He still remembered Deathbringer's words and his warning after the refusal. Now this shy little Autobot was egging him on to a decision he thought no-one could ever force him into. The wolf stepped back to Hun-Gurr's remnants, and touched an empty socket of a joint with his nose.

"Do it. Do what you think is best."

He stayed there as Perceptor attached a thin tube to the silver spark's ruptured casing, and listened to the barely conscious mech's continuous accusations. He watched the gloaming light like a guard would watch a gemstone. He felt Blackshadow's hand on his white wing as his colleague pulled him out of the way.

In what appeared to be the waiting room, Optimus Prime was standing in the circle of the Dinobots, Blaster's crew, and the rest of the Protectobots. He noticed how they all belonged to subgroups, with only the Prime standing above them. This world was not entirely different from his own, but he didn't belong to any of them. They were Transformers, yes, but not his people. His people were in the medbay, one being drained from his innermost energon to save the other.

Blackshadow was viewing the situation from an entirely different perspective. As long as he was concerned, Megatron no longer valued his best troops. He was an egocentric idealist who crossed a line he shouldn't have. The one-mech-fleet had to point out what can and what cannot be done to a phase-sixer, or else Megatron would have reduced them to drones without their own will. That was why he came. And now he was inside an Autobot base, with Optimus Prime in easy reach. In this confined place, these so-called Autobot warriors wouldn't have had a chance against him. And how rewarding would have it been to finally kill the Matrix-carrier? A wartime leader's head always paid well. He could have gotten...

A quiet but resonant growl warned him what exactly would he get if he tried to dismember the Prime. Blackshadow was no fool, and didn't argue with the other Decepticon. Once his mind was made up, Sixshot's allegiance was to be taken seriously.

"Let's discuss this outside" he replied. The black mechanism transformed into his elegant and highly effective fighter jet form and blasted out of the Ark. There he flipped into his robot mode and watched as the white and dark ununtrium tank rolled out after him, and transformed.

"So how long till you have That Talk with the Prime?"

"What?" Sixshot's red optics were glowing with anger. He wasn't in the mood for accusations.

"Well, you hardly look like a prisoner with a bilged power plant and starving on unprocessed coil and on tiny cans of oil..."

"I'm stuck here because they have my stand-down code" Sixshot seethed. "Stand-down code? Does that ring a bell?"

"Uh-huh. You could silence them with one blast before they even noticed" Blackshadow pointed out.

"We made an agreement" Sixshot argued. "They don't offline me, I don't offline them. And Optimus is a legitimate Prime."

"Which only brings us back to the original question. Do you know how long would I remain a Decepticon in your place?"

Oh, Sixshot knew.

"Only as long as it takes to transfer your deposit. Unlike your loyalty, mine is not for sale."

"Everything is for sale, only the supply usually doesn't match the demand" Blackshadow explained. "You don't seek wealth. Instead, you seek respect, especially from your superior, and unlike Megatron, the Prime has that in spades."

Blackshadow was clearly not here when Optimus Prime patted him on the wolf-head. Or, when Rewind made him admit his weakness and failure. Or, when Defensor challenged him in table tennis.

"And trust" Blackshadow continued. "I have seen what I have seen. And I warn you not to be a pathetic fool with an unhealthy, stupid loyalty that allows Megatron to think he can do anything to us."

"Is this your point? You want me to desert the Decepticon cause so that the remaining two of you would be held at higher esteem? Do you plan to gain Megatron's permission to try to kill me, so that you could get that filthy ten million for my head?" As much as Sixshot was in the mood for tearing someone apart, he wouldn't have liked his first victim to be the very mech who brought the last two Terrorcons back from a yautja's tanner-table.

Blackshadow bitterly laughed at him.

"Have you ever believed that the Galactic Council would properly pay one phase-sixer to kill another? They would just watch the method and use it immediately when I would show up for the bounty."

Twirling of a rotor interrupted the debate as a white helicopter with red highlights heaved from the entrance behind them.

"Aid says he needs you in the medbay" Blades said to the white-headed one.

"We will continue this discussion later" Blackshadow decided, and flew away without looking back.

Sixshot dropped to his wolf mode, the only form in which he could move in the Ark's Autobot-sized corridors and interact with his surroundings properly.

Suddenly the whole base felt crumpled and confining. There were Autobots watching him, and he never felt as helpless as when he slowly approached what was left of the Terrorcons' formidable leader. First Aid and Wheeljack were busy stabilizing Cutthroat, but the former put down his tools as Perceptor took the last drops of fuel from around Hun-Gurr's spark.

It was a pale, translucent gray orb now, but still spinning at the rate it used to. Sixshot took the precious dying lightball between his horrible fangs, and tore it out from the wreck of Hun-Gurr's frame. As he walked out of the room, familiar lines of a long unheard prayer broke upon his audiosensors.

"You were dear to those around you, may your spark now be dear to Primus himself..."

Sixshot could feel the weak pulse of energy in his wolf-mouth. Orange and ochre walls surrounded him like a trap, and the primitive instincts of his beast mode urged him outside, into the storme still. He had done what not even the Reapers could force him into. Holding the fading spark between his wolf-teeth, he cantered out from the enemy's crash-landed spaceship, and started to climb the volcano. His claws could barely hold him on the steep side, as if he was shaking, as if he wasn't strong enough. He crawled up among the storm and the rainwater whirling down the hillside. At the highest edge of the crater he sat down on his hind quarters, facing the lush green forest that now swayed in the winds. Hun-Gurr would have liked that sight. He would have perhaps also valued the illusory sense of freedom that was almost palpable on the mountain peak.

Ununtrium-coated jaws closed on the luminous silver ball, and the Terrorcon leader's spark went out in a final, pure white radiance.

It kept raining. The wind stopped after a while, but the dark clouds remained. Sixshot was still sitting in wolf-mode next to the crater, staring in the direction where Cybertron was supposed to be. Their planet was not visible from here, not even on the clearest, cloudless nights. He would probably never have to return home, but his friend was now possibly there, in Primus's care in the Well of All Sparks.

The clouds covered the sky. At a whim, Sixshot took off from the volcano, heading straight out of the atmosphere. If the Autobots offlined him, his undestroyable frame would have fallen into the ocean and wouldn't have been retrieved until the site dried out. Perhaps that would have been for the better. He had nothing to lose.

He rose above the cloud layer, just like in the morning. He loathed to admit it, but for those few breems he was pleased to have once again had the trust and company of a legitimate Prime. He never hoped for these since he gave up on finding Nova.

He remembered Megatron's call. If his assumption was right, the Autobots were somehow jamming his Decepticon communication channels. That would have explained why he wasn't contacted when he was on the ground, but Megatron called him immediately when he got out of the jammer's range. Sadly, the situation was not one for discussing strategies. Especially not after Blackshadow's arrival and definitely not after Hun-Gurr's death. He gave the same frequency a try now, but he wasn't surprised when his call went unanswered.

He looked back at the clouds deep below, wondering about Cutthroat's future. He was an aggressive little beast, but without his memories, it wouldn't be hard to rebuild him as an Autobot. He wouldn't even remember his former gestalt, which was perhaps for the best. As much as the Terrorcons had been a matching addition to the Decepticon ranks, it had never been their decision to serve Megatron's cause. They just took the opportunity to smash and break and tear apart.

He looked down at the planet as it seemingly shrunk behind him. He was leaving his only friend behind, in the hands of those he no longer considered his enemies. Earth displayed a million shades of lively blue and green behind him. Beautiful.

Then, he understood. His captivity wasn't about Megatron not valuing his loyalty. The problem was within him: he was no longer functioning as a phase-sixer like he once used to. He got soft. He grew attached. He sought respect instead of destruction. And why? Because he lost his drive to function properly. That was the weakness Megatron must have spotted much earlier than he did. That was the reason his leader didn't rush to get him back.

He looked back at Earth. He was certain that it would leave Optimus Prime with a huge sense of guilt if the prisoner exchange would fail and the Autobots would just have to execute him. Because, really, who else would need a live weapon, if not even the Decepticons?

Maybe he should just do the Galactic Council the favor, he mused. Before he would witness his value dropping even lower. But even if it will come to that, he first of all needed to clear his mind. For that, he needed solitude.

He entered the Saturn's cloudy atmosphere, and let the cold presence of the planet sooth him. As he sank deeper into the orange and grey gas turmoil, visibility shortened with each astrosecond. No sensor could penetrate the colorful void here... he finally could feel safe. The impenetrable gas had protected him from the outside world almost as well as it sealed the outside world from him.

He flew lower, approaching the unexplored surface. If his assumption was correct, there was a planet-sized labyrinth below him. Crashing into an unseen mountain or other rock formation could have been the easy way out, but it wasn't the plan. He came here to finally face his fears before making his final decision.

He relaxed into the big gray-orange nothing around him, and slowed down his processors. Nightmares were well-known consequences of involuntary shut-downs, and he had a series of those recently. He steadied himself for the first.

He saw a battleground. Oh, yes, the familiar fear of being there but unable to act. He could see Transformers, those he was once fighting side by side with, falling to the ground, and their familiar energy signatures faded away into the dust of the past as they succumbed to their wounds. What was worse than he had prepared for, he couldn't even put names, faces or alt modes to the dying comrades, he couldn't recall who they were, how they died, what happened to their memories. They were forgotten. And what worse could happen to a warrior who knows that he would have to die one day, and all he can hope for is to be remembered by those who had seen him in his fights?

But forgetting and being forgotten were still only part of the fear he knew he had to go through. The next one was the enemy. He had always feared that the Quintessons, the creatures who were capable of building the Transformers in the first place, had grown even more powerful in their exile. Their new weapons must have been bad enough, as he could see both Autobots and Decepticons, fighting united against them.

He had spotted Optimus Prime in the middle of the worst bloodbath of the battle, standing alone in the circle of dead Transformers. 'Optimus?' Odd. In reality, he had never called the Prime by his name, he didn't even refer to him by other than his title.

These were fears, he remembered. But why was he afraid of calling him like that? Why did it, in the present, matter to him that he didn't give the Autobot leader the respect he very well deserved?

In the battle, the Prime looked up to find him. He was horribly injured. The Matrix, the most sacred of all Cybertronian relics, was exposed and unshielded in his chest. Sixshot reluctantly admitted that the Prime's condition had, in the present, on the surface of this faraway gas ball, truly mattered to him. It was more than just his promise not to abuse his trust.

And then, he was suddenly part of the action. Optimus Prime called him by his name and told him to transform. In the next moment, the Prime was holding him in gun mode, aiming as if he was his weapon.

Wait. Wait. WHAT?

Sixshot forcefully activated his main processor, and every sensor he possessed. He was in the gas planet's orange atmosphere, but, (Primus slag it!) he just returned to think in robot mode from... from... from gun mode. What had just happened? He knew that he would involuntarily transform during his nightmares (he had no control over his frame when he was asleep) but transforming in real life because nightmare-Optimus had said so was far over the edge.

At the same time he asked himself why he was so upset about it.

His gun mode was the most dependent. It had no intelligence, as all his energy was focused into the barrel of the weapon. Most of his sensors were inactive to prevent them from the white-out after the shot. What little cognition he still possessed, as well as his remaining few sensors, made up the targeting mechanism – it was barely enough to help him finding the target if it was anything smaller than a regular moon. In theory, he knew he could be aimed like any other gunformer could be, but he still didn't like to depend on any mech to use him. But this vision still didn't make sense. He refused to be a hand-held weapon of anyone but his leader. Would he be afraid of Optimus Prime leading him?

He tried to calm down. He tried to get hold of himself and continue his nightmare, because he knew that the worst was yet to come. He could come back to analyzing it later.

Somewhere on Earth, Prowl asked Optimus Prime if he had a few moments to discuss a potential strategic question.

"Let me guess, it's something to do with Sixshot" Optimus sighed after the door closed behind them.

"Yes" the second-in-command nodded. "You haven't heard Red Alert's tirades when you two took off for your Greeting today."

"I was completely safe with him" the Prime ensured.

"I know... that is why I ask. What will happen when Megatron claims him back?"

Optimus fell silent.

"Then I will have to say him goodbye and hope that Megatron doesn't order him to continue exactly what Blaster interrupted" the truckformer said in a low, determined voice.

"Yes, but what if Sixshot doesn't want to go? He is one small step from taking orders from you. He joined the Decepticons because he needed to belong somewhere. By the looks of it, he isn't more fond of Old Buckethead than you were of his creepy zoo. Would you really hand him over to Megatron?"

Optimus stared at the floor between them. Prowl translated this as an unspoken resignation and acceptance of defeat.

"That is his choice." Optimus looked at Prowl. He wouldn't have spoken these words to anyone but his logical-thinking second. "If he wouldn't want to remain a Decepticon, he would have offered his help finding Ratchet a long time ago."

Neither of them noticed Rewind accidentally overhearing them.

Sixshot stared at the pure whiteness around him. It was bright and without any points of navigation – the opposite of space which he considered his home during the vorns of fighting. He was mistransformed beyond recognition. All his parts were twisted into useless positions, he did not have two panels that would meet. With his transformation cogs disabled, he was completely helpless. None of his engines could get a limb to move, not one energy cable could power up any of his weapons. His spark, his brilliant, strong spark that could have killed with an uncontrolled flash, was sealed away in the one-piece ununtrium metal that was mocked to be his inner armor. An armor that kept him trapped inside.

A pair of red lights approached, and Sixshot couldn't even stand up to properly face embodied the anger and malcontent.

"Lord Megatron" he murmured. Why was his voice so weak? Why couldn't he, even in the mess of irrational fears, stand up and face Megatron, the leader whom he served with true loyalty? Was this yet another fear, or was it a real-life glitch in his processor?

His leader kicked into the purple insignia on his tank mode's side.

"You are unworthy of that" he said. The Decepticon symbol shattered to pieces, which Sixshot, still disabled, watched in horror.

"You are no Decepticon" Megatron continued, much to the warrior's remorse. "A Decepticon would have killed Prime long ago. You were given numerous chances to do that. He is still alive."

"I was waiting for your go-sign" Sixshot muttered, and he wasn't sure he didn't say those words in reality. Even if he did speak during his nightmares, there was no-one who could have told him.

Megatron swept away that excuse. "You think I didn't give it, because I needed the Autobot cassette carrier to get to your codes?" With that, the gray gunformer laughed. That sound itself could have been the end of whole worlds – a laughter of disappointment, gloating, bitterness and uncontrolled lust for power and destruction. At this point, Sixshot realized (not for the first time in his life) that he was simply a tool for demise in Megatron's hand. The moment his leader decided he had outlived his usefulness, he could be thrown away like an old, jagged blade.

"Bad news, Sixshot" the leader of destruction continued. He raised his arm and Laserbeak landed on his shoulder. The mistransformed mech tried hard to remember when he last saw the flier spy.

Laserbeak looked at him with piercing golden optics. He didn't know why the fragile cassetticon was present among his fears, but, for some reason, he knew Laserbeak had a good reason to appear here.

Megatron kicked again into him with disgust, breaking the relatively fragile surfaces of his double shoulder joint. Yes, his leader knew that he got the ununtrium coating in robot mode, and his many alts left him with too many small areas where his coverage was weaker. He was kicked again, this time at the acid burns behind his wolf-ear, and there was a cruel laughter remembering the Decepticon who gave those scars... But then the laughter was interrupted by a familiar sound.

"Leave him alone!" Somehow Sixshot managed to transform, and turned around to face... Deathbringer?

The leader he turned down twice, a destroyer who was toying with him on Mumu-Obscura. A dreaded biomech who lead outcasts like the phase-sixer himself.

"Why are you here?" Sixshot asked. Megatron vanished from behind him. "I'm not afraid of you, Reaper."

"No, you are not" Deathbringer replied. "But you are afraid of having to face me again, and to admit that I was right."

The sixchanger hesitantly nodded. He was offered a place among the Reapers, if he was willing to kill the last links to him being a Decepticon. Now, gone were they both, the Reapers and the Terrorcons alike.

"Cutthroat will live" Sixshot said.

"Oh, if you say so." His tone made the Decepticon suspicious. This whole discussion didn't feel like a nightmare anymore. Even the environment had changed: now that he looked at it, the orange glow reminded more of Mumu-Obscura rather than the whiteness in which he could never feel safe.

"Where are we now, Deathbringer?"

Those finely glowing embers that passed for the biomech's face suddenly turned brighter.

"I'm the inhabitant of the border lines between life, fears, and the all-consuming death. As I have always been. And you are also familiar with these surroundings, are you not?"

"Why did Laserbeak appear in this vision?" Sixshot asked. He didn't mention how Deathbringer's mere appearance scared away boogey-Megatron, but that had obviously happened.

"What do you fear he did?" Deathbringer asked back.

He witnessed something, Sixshot realised. Until now, he wasn't sure if he had really spotted the flightframe during his smack-up with the Dinobots, but now that he recognized that fear, he knew how to react to it. Besides, Rippersnapper mentioned the cassetticons leaving Soundwave from time to time – he would heed the warning, if only to honor the blue mech's memory. He will take the necessary precautions. Even if it will be painful.

Deathbringer took a step back.

"It will take some time for you to come to terms with the weapon-mode issue. By now, you only have one more fear to face. When you're done with that, you won't need me anymore."

With that, Deathbringer vanished in the void of the orange-gray atmosphere.

"What does that green dot mean?"

"I have no idea, Helex. But it can't mean 'Decepticon not on the List' because those are marked with red, I'm sure."

Vos silently lamented about Kaon leaving them without a tutorial to read the scanner with which the Decepticon Justice Division usually found its targets, and Tarn had to agree with the agile black gunformer.

"I can't imagine what takes him so long" Tesarus murmured. "Especially when we have to find that idiotic birdbrain neutral."

"Just because it isn't a Decepticon, you shouldn't think we won't find him" Helex reassured the second-largest of their team.

"We have our orders from Megatron himself" Tarn reminded them. "He is top priority. And as long as Autobots are marked blue and non-targets are red, this green dot ahead of us must be nothing else than our blurter."

"He seems to think he can hide in the mess of that gas planet's atmosphere. One more trick that doesn't work against us."

"Odd. Those energy readings are impossibly high. Why would someone with a spark like this settle for a neutral's miserable life?"

"He's just trying to frighten you" Tarn mocked Helex. "Stay on target."

The lethal, fast and elegant Peaceful Tyranny passed around the gas ball's ring, and dove under into the void. All weapons aboard were steadied to deliver Megatron's righteous rage.

Alone again in the impenetrable fog, Sixshot steadied himself for his worst fear to come. He knew what it was, and he hated the idea even though he knew it to be, for now, nothing but his irrational fear. He slowed his processor down and waited for Megatron to tell him that Cybertron had fallen to the Autobots, and now all phase-sixers were to assemble for a united carnage... of their home planet. This scenario, complete with Overlord's vicious laughter (Cybertron wasn't _his_ home planet, afterall) must have been his worst fear ever. He wondered why this sequence of nightmares didn't start with it.

And again, he got something radically different from what he was bracing himself for.

The orange-gray void around him turned into a solid, peaceful mess, against which he could see an old Transformer standing. And, once more, he saw Optimus Prime, although the Autobot leader didn't seem to acknowledge his presence this time. Quite the contrary: Sixshot felt as if he was overhearing a discussion that was happening behind his back.

"I think he took the bait" Optimus Prime said.

It took him a sparkbeat to recognise the other mechanism. That orange torso, unequipped for battle , and those elegant yellow wings had once belonged to the peaceful Cybertronian leader Guardian Prime. So this vision was happening inside the Matrix of Leadership.

The older Prime turned towards his successor, blue optics staring critically at the truck-bot.

"You give him false illusions" he reprimanded the living Prime.

Sixshot woke rapidly from the mirage. What was this? What... what were they talking about? He was a phase-sixer! A destroyer, not a candidate to the League of Negotiators! He wasn't afraid of being rejected, because he didn't want to belong to them, in the first place! He didn't wish to prove Optimus Prime right. He didn't... he didn't even want to think about it.

The Decepticon Justice Division often caught its prey unprepared, but after the first quick shock they indulged in slow and painful procedures of showing example with the trespasser or traitor they tortured to death. This cloudy place seemed ideal for the surprise raid: the mechanism with the green mark didn't even notice them as the Peaceful Tyranny approached his orange and grey hiding place.

Sixshot's processors were still mostly offline after his last vision. What little cognitive function he possessed was divided between two tasks: decoding the weapon-mode fear, and denial of the final one. Before the sudden appearance of an armed spaceship right in front of him, he was already in his gun mode, which also didn't do much good for his usually sharp intelligence. He only did what any gun would do if another weapon appeared in its range. The gun doesn't think. It doesn't judge. It doesn't tell a friend from a foe.

And that gun was a destroyer with enough firepower to eliminate anything with a single blast.

The newcomer on Megatron's latest battle station was beyond the gloating. This little Autobot here hindered the Decepticons' plans for four orns. Finally, the great leader was forced to turn to a specialist, one who would get the description files of spark and life interconnection out of the medic's brain module. Wasn't it a pity that poor Soundwave suffered all those horrible damages from his battle with Autobots Blaster and Jazz? Neatly, the two third-in-commands almost offlined each other, and they were both on Cybertron now, perhaps mere hics from each other. Meanwhile, somebody had to keep this interrogation going, or else the Decepticon fortress would never function as it was meant to be. Which would be a shame. He really liked the radiance weapon, one that would eliminate all life in three parsecs proximity. The best part of this function, of course, was that exceptions always existed and some very few Transformers with a special, unnaturally strong life spark would be able to survive such attack just like they survived the extreme heat when their inner structures had been coated in ununtrium. Hopefully he would not just be able to use this weapon someday, but he would also witness it from the exact middle of the destruction.

For that, he would perhaps only have to get Ratchet tell him how life, sparks and energy are interconnected.

As Sixshot finally transformed back from his gun mode, his higher cognitive functions returned. He could remember. He could identify. He could tell that, despite his will, he had just wiped out what was left of Megatron's pet executioner team.

Any other Decepticon would have called it rightful vengeance. Megatron got four Terrorcons slain, Sixshot blasted four Division members out of existence. Only, Sixshot was never a believer of vengeance. Experience had long ago taught him it was pointless, it was meaningless, it was a distraction caused by futile rage. He also knew, and also from experience, that vengeance, once fulfilled, lead to vindication on the other party's side.

But why, he whispered into the silence of space. Why did the DJD come after him? Was it their own choice to undo the disgrace of him falling into Autobot hands? As if it was his fault that he had a built-in killswitch! Or maybe they came because Megatron took offense of him ignoring that incoming call. His growl was lost in the space just like his miserable whisper was. After witnessing his fears he had a good guess on what Megatron wanted to tell him when he was holding Optimus Prime on his deck, twenty hics above the ground. If he hadn't made the right decision, the Prime would be dead now and Megatron would be gloating at his terribly misplaced trust.

He scanned the sleek Decepticon cruiser's wreck for life signals, but the gun-mode's firepower was just too powerful for any shields to resist. The Decepticon scientists had built him to be too good. He was never meant to leave survivors, not even if those were Megatron's executioners and Sinnertwin's second favorite topic. The memory of Sinnertwin pained his spark, and no unpenetrable superheavymetal coating could have prevented that sorrow.

He ran one more scan on the Peaceful Tyranny's remains, but again, there wasn't any signal for him to pick up. Not that he had expected more.

He left the gas planet's atmosphere, determined never to talk about what happened here.

Perceptor looked at First Aid.

"You should recharge, mech. There is nothing more you can do."

Slowly, the medic nodded. After these hours of intense work he was too tired to talk.

"Perce is right" Wheeljack agreed. "You are abusing your gestalt members who share their energy with you. We have done all that we can. Leave the miracle work to Ratchet."

First Aid stared at the Decepticon deep in stasis lock. Normally that was how a prisoner would have been treated. They have done their best to repair Cutthroat, now the mech was safe and unconscious in medically induced stasis. Despite his efforts to stay awake, First Aid slowly bent over his unconscious patient and fell asleep right on top of the wrecked frame.

But his sleep was that of a victor.

On his way back to Earth, Sixshot finally gathered up the courage and contacted Blackshadow.

::I guess I am in your debt now::

::We will come back to it when you can pay me back:: his colleague offered. ::Besides, I'm sure you cannot get me what my spark is really aching for::

::Which would be...?::

::The PDF:: Blackshadow replied. ::Are you heading back to the Autobots?::

Sixshot hesitated for a while.

::I take it as a yes. Wise mech. When you talked to Optimus, let me know::

::May I ask something very personal? If your answer is 'no', then I expect you to forget I ever brought it up::

::I would go and join the Autobots, if I were you:: Blackshadow replied.

::That's... not exactly what I wanted to ask. But it was a good guess::

Then, there was silence again.

::Thank you for your support, by the way::

::Now I'm curious. What do you want to know?:: Blackshadow urged.

::Can you imagine me as Cybertron's representative in the Galactic Council?:: Finally, it was out. He asked it. And Blackshadow's first reaction wasn't the hysterical laughter he was expecting.

::That's one of the best-paid jobs I've ever heard about!::

Typical. ::I asked if you can imagine me doing it:: Sixshot repeated.

::You talked me out of tearing the Ark apart. In fact, you know how to talk me out of anything::

::That's easily done. A few millions of shanix on a certain Monacusian Sunbow Bank account, and you would bring down a whole fleet of Warworld battleships:: Sixshot knew his colleague just too well.

::That's not what I meant. The Galactic Council needs a representative they don't dare to sweep aside, and who would withstand daily few attempts on his life. You certainly meet those requirements. And look at yourself. Any sane being in this universe would prefer to have you on their side instead of being your enemy::

Sixshot tried to laugh at that. Blackshadow's services could be bought, if one had enough money. In fact, his loyalty was for sale all the time. Unlike the sixchanger's.

::Is that what Optimus asked of you?:: Oh, the one-mech-fleet was curious.

::It came up. Don't tell Megatron that I asked::

::He's away. On Messatine, as far as I know::

His last words made Sixshot growl with a very bad suspicion. He thanked Blackshadow, and contacted the Autobots at almost the same time.

::Blaster. Do you copy?::

::Loud and clear, Sixshot. The medics are done with Cutthroat for now, we have not heard much but I think he's through the worst. They will tell you the details when you drop by. Rewind also says he has something to tell you, but he would rather do it in person:: That might have been the most polite way of saying 'Get the frag back here' after his almost-escape from Autobot supervision.

::Tell them I'm on my way back. But that isn't why I called::

::You sound angry:: Steeljaw pointed out. But no, he was only focused.

::Contact Perceptor. I know he's been working on an energy tracker which can locate a phase-sixer based off the spark. Tell him to find Overlord immediately. If his energy signature is hidden, ask where he was last seen before he disappeared::

Blaster didn't argue him. He didn't even try to deny Perceptor's tracking him.

By the time Sixshot passed Mars's perihelion, Perceptor himself contacted him. He was much less talkative than usual, as he plainly transferred the data directly from the energy tracker. Apart from Sixshot's own spark, there was only one on the current screen: one phase-sixer was heading towards Monacus as they were talking. Knowing that many Decepticons, including the high command, had interests on the financial world, Sixshot doubted that it was someone on official Decepticon business. Rather, it was Blackshadow, on one of his private voyages. Maybe he was collecting the bounty for those bank-robbers, after taking their loot along with their lives.

He downloaded the history files from the tracker, and played the information backwards. About a joor before, a lifestrong energy signature "appeared" near Chaar. He set the focus here and replayed the events as they had truly taken place: Overlord had been on Chaar until a joor ago, when he left through the space bridge... and disappeared from sight.

Now Sixshot was pissed. He called up the data from the time of Overlord's spacebridge travel, but this time, he focused on the supposed place of arrival: Messatine.

And just as he guessed, there was a tiny flash there, one that could have been otherwise mistaken for a meaningless artefact, a glitch in the readings. Overlord had arrived at Messatine, and Perceptor's tool spotted him before his signature was hidden by a shield that could disguise even the most powerful energy sources.

Now Sixshot had proof. And he was furious like he had never been before.

He rammed into the Ark in his wolf mode, pushing aside those who weren't fast enough to get out of his way.

"Optimus Prime! We need to talk. In private."

And that was a talk Optimus Prime would long remember. They were at the former bridge of the crash-landed Ark, with the murmur of the active volcano in the background. Sixshot was talking about a construction in Decepticon-occupied space, the building of a base that could either fire shots so accurate they could take down a combiner on a nearby planet, or it could blast the entire dirtball out of existence.

"It's workname is PDF for Planet-Destroying Fortress. No self-respecting Decepticon would ever come up with such name."

Optimus Prime frowned. His archnemesis was coming up with ultimate weapons so fast he didn't even name them anymore.

"It has a mirror-structured energy shield, much like how a laser beam is generated" Sixshot continued. "This shield keeps all the fortress's energy inside, making it invisible to any scanners until it fires. But because this phenomenon is also the same as what keeps a spark alive, its installation takes a well-trained medic who has experience in spark-frame connection."

Optimus's frown deepened.

"It actually... has an artificial spark?"

"Not yet, I believe. Rossum was the one to come up with the idea, but he was killed before he could have jotted down more than a few sketches that Shockwave later found. He said it is doable, but he had yet to find out how. He needed information from a real medic, something the Decepticon ranks have been lacking for the last few thousand vorns."

Optimus's frown turned even darker. So this was why they took Ratchet.

"Do you know where this fortress is?"

"I know where it is stationed now. It is near the DJD's headquarters so that their energy tracker could keep a proverbial optic on the shield's construction without anyone noticing what the builders are up to. It is also convenient because the Division's constant presence scares everyone out of talking about the base."

Optimus rested his forehelm in his right palm. This _so_ didn't sound good.

"What we both know is that your medic refuses to donate his knowledge to the great Decepticon cause that I would rather call Megatron's personal cause by now. Soundwave, who could have hacked Ratchet with ease, is still under repairs thanks to Blaster and your third in command. But very few Decepticons know that there is an amateur mindreader in our high ranks, one who challenged Megatron the very moment they met, whom Megatron never managed to perfectly break. Not even after beating him in combat and handing him over to Rossum to be rebuilt as phase-sixer."

"Overlord...!"

Now Optimus was holding his helm with both hands. Sixshot swallowed back a few bitter words. For his (former) leader, Overlord was a fine prize, a pride, not just a warrior. Why did he always have to choose the most unreliable fighters? Wasn't Starscream enough for the conqueror? He had to know that if it was Overlord to get the final piece of information to activate the fortress, it would unavoidably become the non-Cybertronian destroyer's base. With Sixshot's unexpected capture Megatron had to decide how much he valued a stronghold that would inevitably become not his, but Overlord's own.

And the Decepticon leader valued Overlord's to-be base more than the unbreakable allegiance of the sixchanger.

"I have been loyal to Megatron" Sixshot stated. "But since he doesn't want my loyalty, I will keep his decision in mind. I will assist you against Overlord and whoever happens to be present at the construction site. But I still belong somewhere else and I have my own conditions for the outcome."

The Prime steadied himself for the Decepticon's demands. And he kept frowning even more as Sixshot told him what he wanted in return.

"I... I cannot do that. For several reasons, I cannot let that happen."

"You have several reasons to _let_ that happen, Optimus Prime" the sixchanger reminded him. "It's not about me. I will help you because I can't let Overlord have the fortress that cost my freedom and my faith. But remember what you told me, Prime. If you are a mech of your word just like I am, you won't let the PDF be destroyed, with or without its spark."

Optimus shot him a questioning look. Sixshot spoke up, guessing this would be the final test of the Autobot leader.

"Do you remember what you told me about destroying something what is worth fighting for? And 'it's time for me to trust a phase-sixer', do you recant that?"

Those piercing red optics stared at the Prime. His reply now would reveal whether he truly meant those words, or if he just voiced his far-fetched ideals. It was the moment in which Sixshot would decide whether he would join Cybertron's legitimate leader, or this Prime would prove to be yet another poser.

"Sixshot" Optimus finally nodded, almost making a bow. "You have learned to negotiate."

After yet another moment of silence and admitting what was victory and defeat at the same time, he activated his comm link.

::Blaster! Contact Ratchet. Tell him to comply with the Decepticons, but warn him to make it look as if Overlord forced him to cooperate::

::Prime, would you please tell me _how_ I contact Ratchet?:: But Optimus had no audial for him.

::Elita, sweetspark. All Autobots on Cybertron are under your command now. Make sure the two 'Waves don't assist any Decepticons on any distant worlds::

::I will see to that. But Optimus, please don't get yourself killed meanwhile::

The Prime wished he could promise that. But if everything goes well, he might celebrate in Iacon, with his beloved. He could not let the slim chance slip from the Autobots.

::Prowl! Prepare diversions. Tell the Aerialbots to get help and besiege Starscream's base on Rigel V. Make sure Megatron won't be getting any help from his second in command::

::Copied that. Are you going to take on Megatron alone?::

To that, Sixshot nodded.

"I will take you and your troops there, Prime. I will take on Overlord. But you can't make me fight Megatron. This much of my loyalty remains."

Optimus never expected less from him.

Sixshot nodded, and contacted Blackshadow.


	6. Phase 6

**Phase six – all-out destruction**

Optimus Prime looked at the sky impatiently. He still wasn't sure this was a good idea, but there was no other way for getting Ratchet back in the near future.

In fact the whole idea seemed so... wrong. Oh, not that one of the Decepticons' most powerful living weapons would be fighting on their side. That was agreed on. But what would come after the fight...

"Are you sure you want us to stay?"

Optimus turned to the right. Hot Spot was standing beside him, at a respectful distance.

"Yes. I'm sorry you can't come, but I need some Autobot presence on Earth or else Megatron will know what we are up to. Wheeljack will be with us to give Ratchet whatever help he needs. And don't forget the Dinobots. I won't have to rely on Sixshot alone." Not that they would have had much of a chance against a phase-sixer if things went wrong. Much less could they do against two of them.

And Optimus Prime was admittedly anxious about what Sixshot demanded to be done to the fortress after it was taken from the Decepticons. No, he was not anxious, he was scared and he was already blaming himself for making an irresponsible decision. But he could not go back on his former words.

The leader of the Autobots marched a complete circle around the volcano, then turned around and continued pacing.

::Any word from Blaster?::

::Not yet:: Wheeljack replied. ::The Aerialbots and Skyfire are in position near Rigel V. Jazz is waiting for your signal to jam Cybertron's communication, and I don't envy any stragglers who will be on planet at the time. I don't envy Primus, to be honest::

Optimus laughed at the remark, trying to hide his anxiety behind the giggle. Wheeljack was given a lot less enviable task for this attack on the PDF: he was more than likely to be caught in the crossfire.

Finally Teletraan sensed Cybertronian activity on the cloudy surface of the Saturn. A purple mass rose from the orange and gray clouds, like a submarine would rise from under the sea. Only, it was much deadlier. Optimus couldn't hear Red Alert screaming, but he must have been saying 'I told you, haven't I' and who would have argued the security director when a large Decepticon insignia was heading towards Earth.

"Creepy" Wheeljack remarked.

::It doesn't look much better on the inside:: Blaster aired. ::Whoever designed this barge, they overdid patriotism::

::Finally!:: Hot Spot proclaimed. ::What took you so long?::

Blaster hesitated. Should he say Sixshot was napping in the lower cargo hold before the battle?

Optimus recalled his initial reluctance to use Sixshot's spaceship mode for travel. Sixshot's spaceship was even less welcoming: the worldsweeper was levitating in low orbit as Omega Supreme connected to it. Blaster and Perceptor were going to follow the battle from the relative safety of the huge old Autobot's cockpit.

"Me Sludge say World Ship overly Decepticon."

"But we can get under the fortress's shield with it" Sixshot pointed out. He seemed to be in a bad mood, and he blamed it on recharging in the hold of the ship instead of the homely emptiness of space. He wasn't used to sleeping inside anything, but he could endure it out of necessity. "Prime, may I have a word with you?"

The red and blue Autobot leader looked up into Sixshot's sleepy red optics. The sixformer dropped to one knee to make the conversation easier.

"Prime, under any circumstances I would trust you with my spark. Here, I have to make a request. I don't care if you think me a coward."

Optimus patted him on the double shoulder joint.

"This is your ship, you are doing us a favor."

"Then stay away from the cockpit. I have seen what you have done to the Ark, I don't want you to ever pilot a ship that has a tendency to crash anyway."

Optimus Prime tried not to seem too embarrassed. Mere meters away, Slag was rolling on the floor with laughter. Sixshot's red gaze fell on him, then on the other Dinobots. The young primitives were strong and powerful, but why shouldn't he let them feel even stronger? He transformed to his wolf mode and told them to follow him.

Knowledge. Memories. Experience.

Motivation.

The love of life. Best intention and pure selflessness hidden under the grumpy outside.

A teacher's wisdom from long ago. The first spark he was holding in his hands, that of a millionaire after a semi-successful assassination attempt. What happened to the mech? Ratchet remembered transferring him to a new body, one that was functional and much less flaunty, hoping that the 'bot would not attract attention again.

Data. The stillness of the library in the Protihex Medical Mechanics University. Reading about an extremely odd phenomenon of a male and a female twin spark in the same frame, and the theories behind it.

Statistics about different rare spark types. Students scanning each other with red light. Lots of numbers and function curves.

Loneliness. Faith in the other Autobots. In Optimus and Blaster, in particular.

Sixshot opened the blast door to the upper cargo hold, and registered the small sounds of awe from the Dinobots as they stormed in and smashed the factory seals of the worldsweeper's most infamous accessories: a whole set of cybernoughts. He smiled behind the white mouthplate at the seemingly innocent rampage. He was glad that Megatron wasn't here to witness how the vintage devices were finally wrapped out from their holders.

From the outside, the Planet-Destroying Fortress looked like a mishmashed bunch of spires and towers, though Sixshot insisted it was meant to resemble a decapitated quintesson . The longer, crooked towers on one side of the cylindrical structure truly reminded of tentacles of some kind, but the electrum-covered smaller appendages on the other end could have just as well looked like a crown. The fortress had a pair of traditional power-symbolizing wings around an orange and red satellite cone in the center.

::Oh, Sixshot. Welcome::

Megatron's voice could be heard all over the worldsweeper. It was cold and menacing, with a hint of merciless cruelty and a touch of authority. If could have made any sentient being scream for a way out. :: I hope you enjoyed your holiday::

Sixshot calmly pointed at the labyrinth of spires. "I think he is up there. From the other side, that spire looks like a winged throne, if you squint hard enough."

"Where is Ratchet?" Wheeljack asked next to them.

"Close to the new spark, I suppose. In the center."

Megatron's voice continued.

::It was brave of you to trap Optimus Prime and lure him to me. Congratulations, wise Six:: Since none of the passengers seemed to believe that Sixshot betrayed them when he brought the most valuable Autobot to the Decepticon base, Megatron continued to spread seeds of suspicion among his visitors. ::Your reward won't be late::

"Reward? You have already sold me" Sixshot growled to himself. But if Megatron didn't order the fortress to open fire on his ship because he was hoping to get Optimus as his prisoner, he wasn't in a hurry to enlighten him about his decision. And it looked as if his leader wasn't used to weapons making up their own minds once in a while.

The symbol-ship stormed through the upper force field of the fortress, and immediately opened fire on the nearest shield generator. It was time to clearly show hostile intent. A colorful pattern above them marked the barrier that was switched on only a few seconds too late. It did not keep the worldsweeper out, but it could prevent its escape unless they offline it.

"Here come the greeting drones!" Wheeljack warned.

A fleet opened fire to the large flying Decepticon insignia. Sixshot piloted the worldsweeper through their lines without concern, and spiraled towards the crooked spires.

"Is this what you NOT call crashlanding?" Optimus screamed from the other side of the cockpit's blast-door as the impact shook everyone off their pedes. Sixshot didn't comment. Crash – check. Landing – he wasn't sure. The symbol ship was actually parked in the tangle of wires and shards that once belonged to the structure of crooked spires. He looked up at the secondary generators of the force field. Those could not be identified from space, but they needed to be deactivated if anything was to leave the fortress's proximity.

He deployed the five cybernoughts.

There was no loyalty among the Decepticons. There was fear to keep them in line, there were mutual enemies and the urge to destroy. Perhaps it was a mistake for Megatron to leave Sixshot down without something for him to annihilate. The phase-sixer had, expectedly, helped himself to new targets on his own. Too bad it was the Justice Division. On the other hand, he couldn't imagine why Tarn took on the trapped Decepticon when he was not even on the List. The absence of those four familiar energy signatures reverberated as an almost physical pain in the emptiness they left behind.

Primitives were destructive in general, but the Dinobots truly excelled at undoing. Their heavy fire annihilated the Planet-Destroying Fortress's defense drones like water washes away scraplets. Sixshot looked up at the colorful force field. It would be down in a matter of breems.

"Wheeljack, stay safe" he said as he left the cockpit. The inventor did not argue: Ratchet would need him to be functional. One offline medic could hardly repair another.

Sixshot marched to the ramp of the worldsweeper. When he will blast out from here, he will have betrayed everything he had fought for over thousands of vorns. He will turn against the mech who made him a phase-sixer, whose brand he was wearing since... Wait. He had already been a Decepticon when Megatron was nothing but a few sketches on Hook's worktable.

He transformed into his spaceship mode, and rocketed out of the Decepticon symbol ship. He deployed his most precious cargo on the terrace of an ion beam blaster.

"See you soon, alive and victorious" he said, looking into the blue optics. He didn't say that farewell line since Nova Prime's disappearance.

"Soon, alive and victorious" Optimus repeated the wish. With that, Sixshot transformed again, and went searching for the Autobot medic.

::Cybernought make Dinobots stronger:: Slag rejoiced.

::Cybernought make battle boring:: Snarl replied. He had already lost count of how many war drones he flatted in the past two minutes, and that wasn't only because he couldn't count beyond three.

::Me Grimlock agree:: their leader commented. Then, all of a sudden, he said ::Me Grimlock reconsider::

Optimus Prime watched from the terrace as the ion beam blaster moved to target a cybernought. He didn't know which Dinobot was in that, but he did what he could from the balcony: he ripped the control wires out of the beam blaster. The weapon fired a multicolor beam at the black horizon instead of the Decepticon-built warmachine.

At a whim, Optimus opened the interface panel on his left arm and plugged the wire in. He wasn't much of a hacking expert, but he had to know whether the Decepticons had truly created an artificial spark.

The flow of information almost threw him off the terrace. Movements of all drones and spire-mounted weapons registered to him almost like he was in an omniglobe. He could see through the targeting mechanism of each cannon, and he could feel the unnaturally regular spin of the energy ball in the heart of the structure. Through the inner sensors, he could see Megatron rushing towards him. He downloaded the map of the towers, and detached himself from the artificial being's network.

"So you have lowered yourself to abducting a warmech, oh great and glorious Prime!"

"Good day to you, Megatron, although I might be a little late in saying that. You had your last chance to give us Ratchet."

Megatron laughed.

"You can get him, but as long as this base is mine, you will not get far from here! Only after me reducing you and your precious docbot to space dust!"

Optimus activated his yellow light-axe. "I won't let that happen! One shall stand..."

"One shall fall!"

As the tissue of cables and weight-carrying structures tightened around him, Sixshot flipped around his longitudinal axis and continued his way in his wingwolf mode. There was no space for him to maneuver at high speed, and the wolf's frontal paws could tear through the occasional bunches of wires in his way. His instincts helped him find Ratchet, remembering the medic's energy signature from the chase on Earth so many quartexes ago. The passed time could have been measured in cycles of that organic planet, but the wolf was not going to forget the scent of his prey.

Sludge threw the back shield of the immobilized cybernought at one of the drones, and climbed out of the robot-shaped vehicle to transform and breath fire at them and stampede those that got too close to him. Not far, Slag's cybernought was getting dismantled by Devastator. Its forming Constructicons didn't take well how the Dinobot damaged their newest work. Slag was still inside, and growled insults.

"Autobots say vessel form useful. Me Slag used vessel, me Slag glad if out alive!"

With that, the Dinobot made the cybernought pull up both its patriotic knees. The sharp, talon-like edges on the knee parts' Decepticon insignias cut into the combiner like blades, and he used this opportunity to get out of the vehicle and rush through the large green Decepticon's arm towards the enormous head. He was wiped off before he could have blinded the combiner, but his sword still caused considerable damage.

Swoop covered him from the air.

Ratchet was lying seemingly unconscious on the bench. His motion hardware's wiring was mostly torn out, his transformation cogs were lined up on a nearby table just out of his reach. His mind was connected to the fortress's network through a cable in the head-part of the examination bench. Sixshot wondered for a moment if he should start worrying for the medic's mental status in the future and carefully lure his consciousness back to his white and red frame. Deciding the scenario wasn't suitable for subtleties, he applied a dirty move he once learned from Shockwave and sent the medic into stasis with a fake error message to the cerebrohardware. Ratchet will get a headache similar to his own when his code was re-set, but maybe this was something Sixshot owed the Autobots anyway. He swept the loose cogs into the docbot's modified cargo hold. The data transferring cable was absolutely chanceless against a huge white-headed wolf's ununtrium-covered teeth.

Grimlock had never seen a tank this stubborn and enduring before. It was a blue machine with light purple cannon on white ordnance, and it crushed two cybernoughts with ease. Swoop was able to escape on his wings, but Snarl's luck ran out when the newcomer blasted through the artificial shell and then the collapsing warmachine trapped him inside its overheated cockpit. Grimlock concentrated all his cybernought's fire on the tank, but that only bothered him as much as if a sparkler would have attempted to stop him.

::Me Snarl in!:: the Dinobot screamed from the inside. And the Gigatank was going to roll him over!

Ratchet rebooted to the sight of two white wings mere inches from his face, passing metal covers (was it the inside of a shallow tunnel?), an odd rhythm of dandle, and a brutal headache that must have been caused by an involuntary processor reaction. Through the void of CPU error messages, he remembered Blaster telling him to cooperate because rescue was on the way. He wouldn't have believed in that until Blaster aired the exact details of how cybertronium withdrawal knocked out both factions so many years ago. The medic didn't only recognize the footage, he also knew that none of his captors would have ever let that recording close to the fortress's perfectly hidden database. Those recordings were blackmail materials by anybot's book.

But even if this was a rescue, why didn't the Autobots show themselves? And who did these wings belong to?

"Hold on, if you can! We will have to take a curlier route."

That voice (of course he recognized it!) freaked out Ratchet for an astrosec, but at least it answered both his questions.

Perceptor and Blaster watched the snowy landscape of Messatine from the far side. They wished they could do something more useful, but they had to stay with Omega Supreme and wait till they were called for.

"Careful, Omega, don't go too close to the surface" Perceptor warned. "That snow field might be that of the trappy kind."

"I have never heard about trappy snow fields" Blaster harrumphed.

"Omega Supreme: had" their vessel announced. "Proper term: cold field."

"The phenomenon was referred to as 'trappy' when it was first described" Perceptor argued.

"Right. And would either of you tell me what a cold field is?"

"The term refers to an area where the atmosphere's floating metal content and the magnetoelectrical interaction with the planetary axis make the natural temperature appear and act colder than it measurably is. Lots of otherwise cold-resistant items were found trapped in or under the snow in such fields."

"Skyfire: example of that."

Sixshot was far from interested in technoarcheological excavations at the moment. He had to get Ratchet out from the Fortress. He cantered through the last tunnels when he heard a sound that warned of death and brutality. Suspiciously, he slid the medic from between his upright wolf-wings to the relative security of his chest region. They were only half a hic away from an opening where he could have transformed into his flight mode.

His sharp wolf-ears were the first sensors to warn him of the danger, and it were the battle-sharpened reflexes that told him to loop just the moment the Megajet fired. He crouched under the fire, and dropped the medic, still covering him with his frame, shielding the two of them with what used to be his right wing. At the end of the loop he jumped, despite all the pain and damage, knowing that he only had a chance against Overlord while his two parts were separated. He even had the sang-froid to air their whereabouts to Wheeljack, and to include that he won't be able to fly out because one of his wings got smelted... along with his double shoulder joint. Not even ununtrium could withstand that fire from only half a hic distance.

Optimus dodged, then grabbed Megatron's right arm with both hands. He tried to bang the mount off the fusion cannon with his head, but his silver enemy kicked him in the chest and twisted himself out of the Prime's grip. As always, they were too strong for each other to be defeated. Giving it up was not an option. Triumph was an unreachable goal. Once one of them had the upper hand, the other managed yet another counter-attack.

Their fight had been a spectacular stalemate for the past nine million years.

That blast could have killed any mech, if the thick ununtrium wing didn't ward off most of it. The energy still burnt through the Decepticon's shoulder after vaporizing Sixshot's right wing, and the double joint was still emanating heat long after the hit. Metals mixed and compounded, the heat spread to the right side of his chest, but Sixshot didn't seem to notice. He was holding on to the Megajet's side in robot mode with his left hand, kicking the lower side of the dark plane, trying to damage the connection hardware so that Overlord's two parts wouldn't be able to merge into his robot mode.

It was obvious that the fighter jet wouldn't stay airborne for long with a robot twice his size hanging on her side. In her attempt to shake the other phase-sixer off her frame, the Megajet span around her axis. Sixshot finally fell, but he managed to take the transtector cannon with him.

::Grimlock, do you copy?::

::Me king busy tearing stubborn blue tank!::

It wasn't rocket science to realize this was the tank without whom the Megajet was only half the mech he could have been. She was still a worrisome factor on Megatron's side without his lower part, but for now Sixshot's aim was to keep the two parts separated.

::Do you remember asking about our weaknesses? Now listen! You have Overlord's structure analysis, right?:: he asked. He dropped the cannon before he hit the ground, then transformed into his tank mode. It must have been a rather pathetic-looking vehicle, with half of its right modules held aside, and the joints in his shoulder still glowing with the heat. Sixshot knew that giving in to the pain was a luxury he had no time for. He had to disable the two halves while he still could, by any means.

::We Dinobots read Over Con. Prime say knowledge half battle. Us Dinobots not only the other half!::

::Good. When we received the ununtrium coating on our endostructure, we were in our robot modes. Joint surfaces that are only visible in our alt modes are not nearly as well covered::

Grimlock aimed one last shot before his cybernought fell into pieces. He backed out of the ruined war vessel, and continued to attack the joints of the Gigatank. He did not give the opportunity for Snarl to be crashed by the blue half of the living war vehicle.

A black fusion cannon hit the ground first, the barrel on Megatron's back followed. Optimus was still holding his left ankle, preventing his opponent from standing up. The right leg kicked him in the windshield. Once free from the Prime's grip, Megatron jumped up and brandished the nearest tool (an oversized flux tube) to block his opponent's axe. Prime soon found himself holding an inactive soldering iron, and he pushed the still hot tip into Megatron's elbow when the Decepticon cracked his helmet's left side with the tube. Dizzy from the hit, Optimus stumbled back to the ion beam blaster's terrace. Noticing only now that the soldering set was left here because the side of the terrace was yet to be properly attached to the metallic wall of the spire, he turned aside so that Megatron was standing between him and the unattached security railing.

The Decepticon leader was careless (just as Prime was), but not a fool. While his fists hammered the Autobot's red chassis and his heavy leg ruptured Optimus's left knee, he also made sure to switch places with the blue-helmed warrior. Cornered and knowing that the railing won't hold him if he was kicked back again, the Prime had only one option: he grabbed the large grey gunformer in an almost-hug and jumped. Megatron had no time to activate his flight modifications, but he could at least ensure that he landed on his left arm while the truckformer fell on his right side.

Under them, the covering dome of the planet-destroyer giant laser cannon started to retract. Their fall must have activated the weapon system, and they were now literally fighting on top of heavy artillery.

Neither of them seemed to be bothered by this little fact. Megatron elbowed into the air intake grid on Optimus's chest while the Prime tore out an energon cable from under the silvery gray armor.

They were at a stalemate, like they have always been.

Ratchet had to watch the battle between the upper half of Overlord and the wounded Sixshot from a lot closer than it would have been safe. Was this the rescue Blaster was speaking about? It seemed so.

"Battle drones!" he warned, as he heard the footsteps.

Footsteps?!

Footsteps indeed. The flightless machines had to climb the ladders attached to the steep walls of the half-ready spark powerizer. This part was only constructed a few hours before the attack, it was not meant to become a battle scene yet.

Or ever. It was meant to provide energy for the artificial spark.

Sixshot turned around on Ratchet's warning, and blasted a corridor in the battle drone's lines. But at the same time, he had to also hold the Megajet's nosecone, preventing her from taking a better position to fight. It was a small mercy of fate that Overlord's two individual halves couldn't transform separately, or else the move would have earned him a fist in his still glowing wound.

Swoop had to assist his leader in tank-weakness-exploration, so Slag and Sludge were left to deal with Devastator by themselves. Neither were exceptionally smart, but when the two rammed its legs, the Decepticon combiner was literally swept off his feet. The two Dinobots rampaged the torso of the fallen enemy, until the six Constructicons separated and opened fire on the two cornered Autobots. Meanwhile, Grimlock did not have time to get Snarl out of the cybernought, as he was busy pushing his flame-sword into a slim breach on the top of the ordnance. All of a sudden, the tank turned around and rolled away from the battle scene.

::You Over Con run from us Dinobots!:: he shouted. But he could not rush after the Gigatank, as three of his comrades needed his help. Joining Sludge and Slag in battle, the Dinobot leader called Swoop to methodically disassemble the cybernought and get Snarl from under it.

Wheeljack arrived just in time to see the Megajet leave for the other side of the Planet-Destroying Fortress. There were grounder drone ruins all around, as well a severely wounded Sixshot in what appeared to be a mistransformed offroader car form.

"Six you can't chase after him in this condition! Your shoulder will weld together if you don't give it time to cool down first!"

"Her. That's the female part" Sixshot corrected the inventor. He would rather nitpick about Overlord's complicated gender, than admit he was right about his still-burning shoulder.

"What?" the inventor of weird things seemed to be confused at the female any other conditions, Sixshot would have bothered to explain.

"You will find Ratchet in the tunnel. I had no time to reattach his motion cables" he said. "Cogs in the cargo hold!"

He saw the second wave of drones and inwardly growled. He didn't know why the black fighter jet decided to abandon the fight just when the reinforcement arrived, but he knew Overlord enough to guess he was up to something bad. He also knew he could not keep up with the jet when he was unable to take his spaceship form. He was well aware of the ununtrium slowly cooling down in his double shoulder joint – if it would solidify in this pose, no medic in the known galaxy would make that part of him movable again.

Once, so many thousand vorns ago, he was happy about the upgrade?!

::We Dinobots come::

Wheeljack let out an inaudible sigh. After finding Ratchet and realizing he won't be able to repair him and also keep the drones out from the corridor at the same time, he had to place his faith in the Dinobots.

There was no arguing over the Constructicons. Nor calling other Autobots useless in battle. What a blessing! Almost too good to be true.

Just a moment later, he noticed the covering dome being retracted from the fortress's gigantic laser.

On the dome, out of Wheeljack's sight, a gray and a red and blue shape were trying to disassemble / chop up with an axe / hammer flat / unarm / puncture in all the wheels / smash each other. They used their built-in magnets to stay on the surface even when it turned more vertical than horizontal. Nothing seemed to bother them in their stalemate.

Overlord hissed angrily as his waist sparkled and screeched. This battle wasn't going well, and one had to know when to change strategy. Surely a heroic idiot like Sixshot would have chosen to continue the fight, but he preferred victory and the elimination of the unwanted opponents instead of fair play. If the fortress had the ability to wipe out everyone without a superspark, wasn't it there to be used? And after that, he would still have plenty of time to defeat Sixshot... after the mech had witnessed the deaths of his new-found friends.

Messatine was a cold and unwelcoming world, with noticeable resources of nucleon under the snowfields and the Serp Mines on the other side of the planet. Omega Supreme looked down at the gleaming white surface. Why did the place feel so familiar? He was certain he'd never been here before. The area was deep in Decepticon territory since the beginning of the war. There certainly was nothing for an Autobot like him to feel this indescribable closeness to the snowfields, or anything that was below.

But was he imagining things? It didn't matter. Wheeljack had already reported that they found Ratchet, who was in a bad shape but not as bad as they started to fear. The Dinobots were busy clearing the area around them, and Grimlock proudly announced that he had hit Overlord where it certainly hurts. There was no word from Optimus aside from occasional small hisses and moans and other sounds of shredding each other with Megatron. Once he guessed Optimus to have swept the trademark bucket-shape helm off Megatron's heard, because the Prime whispered a remark about a new haircut, and admitted to have liked the rusty shade better. The giant spaceship also heard Megatron's reply about Optimus being the rusty one.

Omega Supreme was patiently waiting for the signal that he can leave the hiding place, and take off with Ratchet and the rest of his friends.

Their fall was inevitable, as not even Megatron was meant to fight lengthy battles on a vertical piece of metal. At least, he had his flight modifications. When Optimus's tight grip on his broken left side loosened a little, Megatron took off and aimed his fusion cannon at the Autobot leader. Optimus recalled the rare occasions he could use his own flight mods, then steadied his shock adsorbents and gracelessly slid down the mostly-retracted dome. He immediately transformed on arrival, and rolled to the elevator on the other side of the throne spire. Knowing the area was half the battle, and he was unspeakably glad to have looked into the construction files.

On the elevating platform, he wondered why he could read the fortress's secrets that easily. Perhaps those were fake files? He was in Decepticon territory, after all. Yet everything seemed to have matched, so far. His next guess was Ratchet having something to do with it. The medic was well trained enough to have somehow convinced the Decepticon base to grant him access.

He mused on the 'convinced' part for an astrosec. What if? Nobot could tell how much the fortress with an artificial, spark-like energy ball differed from a real, sentient robot. If he was in the relative safety of the elevator because the base _decided_ to assist him, the deal he made with Sixshot could have been horribly wrong for an entirely new reason he never yet considered. Or maybe it was the right thing to do? This was not the time for regret. He did what his morals told him to do, and prayed that Primus would handle the rest.

Sixshot looked longingly up at the tall spire. Overlord was already in the command center, so most likely the former sixchanger was late. Despite numerous wide-spread rumors, his enemy was able to fly as a complete robot. Certainly both the Megajet and the Gigatank suffered injuries in the battle, but not enough to have prevented Overlord from moving as he wanted. Unlike him.

Painfully, Sixshot transformed to his robot mode and examined his cooling shoulder joint thoroughly. The pain was over, but the lack of sensation bothered him almost as much. He grabbed his right elbow with his left hand and tried to move it, but to no avail. He transformed to wolf mode as much as he could, and attempted to move the limb with the wolf-leg on the same side. No success there: the double joint had already fused.

So, that was it. With the ununtrium holding tight on his deformed endostructure, he was crippled for the rest of his life. At least he made all those stretching excercises, and those would make it easier for him to learn to cope with a large, unmovable appendage that used to be his right arm.

Not that there was much left for him to do in his functioning. He would not serve Megatron again. He spurned the other Decepticons he ever worked with... the faction he once belonged to was now made of batches of backstabbers. The Terrorcons, his team... Here his line of thought stopped.

He had seen Cutthroat in stasis after he returned from the Saturn. Perceptor told him that they have successfully stabilized the sole survivor of Megatron's (and Metalhawk's) treason. First Aid had connected the almost intact databanks of Hun-Gurr to the flier's mind in a way that he would have seamless access to the memories of the leader, but he would be able to tell them from his own.

In Sixshot's opinion, this was more than anyone could have, would have done for any of Abominus's parts.

Overlord prepared the Planet-Destroying Fortress for the wipe-out. Or should he call it pest control? He had to get rid of the Prime. He had to get rid of the Dinobots. Ratchet might have been still useful, as most important knowledge was not in the brain modules or other data storages but the spark itself, and that was about to be destroyed. Something similar applied to the Constructicons who were at the wrong place at the wrong time. But then, if the weapon would work, it would mean the base was complete, so he didn't need these inferior Cybertronians.

As he was preparing the final check-ups, making sure that Omega Supreme and his crew wouldn't escape their fate either, his glaze fell on a security camera's display. On and around the lower levels of the nearby tower, a silvery gray mech was searching for his disappeared opponent. His helm was missing, but he was still recognizable.

Overlord stared at the consol in front of him. Why did he come here? What did he have to do in the throne spire while there was a battle going on out there?

He stared, and tried to remember. For some reason he could not do that, but he pieced the scenario together. Here was this new base, untested, and there was Omega Supreme, a living legend of the Autobots, hiding on the other side of Messatine. There, he had it! Why did he forget that he came to blast the planet out of the way? That certainly was the idea, the giant laser cannon's dome was already uncovered. Though, according to the readouts, the fortress didn't yet have the complete firepower installed, but it was still worth a shot.

With Starscream by his side since the beginning, Megatron expected himself to be accustomed to his Decepticons failing him. He was always prepared for the loss of troops and resources, but Sixshot's betrayal caught him unprepared. Sixshot had always been eager, obedient and uncannily predictable. So what happened to him? Laserbeak never reported the Autobots tampering with him (not that he expected Optimus Prime to allow that) though the Cassetticon spy couldn't be around the prisoner constantly.

What a loss. He had relied on the destroyer, he had even trusted him to some degree. He didn't even order Shockwave to add the bug to his logical circuits that prevented Overlord from acting against his leader. Wasn't it bitterly ironic that the sixformer arranged an Autobot attack against the Decepticon fortress and it was Overlord who was keeping it in Decepticon hands?

A colorful blast of the giant laser cannon blinded every sensor for a few astroseconds. It was brilliant, powerful, pure energy that originated from the artificial being, crossed the empty black sky... then, it was adsorbed as it reached the cold surface of Messatine. As the snow evaporized from the field, a metallic stucture was delineated.

No words can describe Optimus Prime's relief when he saw the snow field of Messatine adsorbing the giant laser blast. But when the water lapsed from the surface of the giantic Cybertronian, he rejoiced. So much time passed since he met this mech in person. Like most metrotitans, he preferred to be given his head and sometimes he was just as stubborn as the five Dinobots together. Yet, he was a dedicated Autobot warrior and a well-trained medic, whom the Prime grieved deeply after his sudden disappearance. Until recently, they didn't even know what happened to the large healer. And after what Sixshot told them, there was very little chance they would ever see him alive. Yet here he was, still disoriented and extremely low on energon, but as alive as any Autobot base could be. Optimus tried to greet him through his radio, but his transmitter got shattered during the fistfight.

Sixshot looked up at the black sky, not missing the suddenly reappeared energy signature of his old opponent. He inwardly cheered, guessing this wasn't the result Overlord bargained for. On the other hand, the reappearance of Big D reminded him of Metroplex and how it felt to be stepped on. His frown turned darker when he remembered not even a metrotitan could break ununtrium. Yet again he regretted accidentally blasting the Decepticon Justice Division. Those five (four, if Kaon was truly killed before) would have been able to break his shoulder armour.

He looked up at the crooked towers, watching them move suspiciously. It looked as if the structure was rearranging its parts to form a space bridge. Who was trying to come through? It had to be a Decepticon, or else Blaster would have notified him not to accidentally kill the straggler. Most likely it was Starscream's trine from Rigel V, but did they attempt to flee their posts, or was the second-in-command eager to gain the glory of helping Megatron out?

With his fused, unmovable right arm, he leaned against the closest coloumn. He pushed with all his weight, hoping that his arm would crack and regain some movement. The ununtrium piece glided through the construction metal with ease.

As the crooked tower collapsed, he caught sight of the small red dot moving up the side of the throne tower. He couldn't see what the truckformer was doing, but he was heading straight to the control room which, more than likely, now Overlord occupied. The Prime was just a few hundred metrics from getting himself killed, and Sixshot couldn't even warn his recently accepted superior.

The space bridge collapsed, and Megatron's only currently available communication officer stared at it with his incredibly black optics. He had to find a way to contact Bruticus and Menasor, or else the Decepticons would lose the fortress before it was even finished. He also found it unnerving that despite all of Shockwave's efforts, Soundwave was still unreachable. As far as he could tell, all of Cybertron's planetary communication network was in a mess.

Blaster and Perceptor were speechless. Not a breem after discussing a possibility that something might be under the snow, a half-conscious metrotitan was uncovered.

"Isn't that Big D?" Blaster stared.

"I think so" Perceptor replied. "Looks like he is trying to transform into his hospital mode. No other metrotitan has that alt."

Omega Supreme confirmed their assumption.

"Old friend: identified. Designation: Delphi."

Kaon the city was at the Southest area of Cybertron. Everybody knew that. Kaon the Decepticon Justice Division member was on the move, from the communication tower to the damaged space bridge. And only his pet sparkeater was aware of that.

Kaon landed a safe distance from Sixshot. As much as hunting down traitors with his fellow DJD members was in his job description, handling a phase-sixer alone was an entirely different business. Cooperation was the key. They were five, while their target was always someone who failed or refused to cooperate with the rest of the Decepticons. A loner was always weaker than a team that was holding together, no matter the weaponry or the spark type or the importance of the data he was carrying.

But now, Kaon was desperate to beat the odds. He knew that the Dinobots were wreaking havoc on the base, and he had to survive until reinforcement arrives. Optimus Prime and Megatron slagged each other as usual, and as much as Megatron lived up to his reputation and tried to find the Autobot leader just to keep on dismantling him, he wasn't in shape to defend the base himself. The Constructicons were busy repairing each other, and their united form, Devastator was still blind. Was Overlord really left as the only one to defend the Planet-Destroying Fortress? This must be a bad dream.

On the other hand, the Autobots scored no better. Their leader was alone in a tower and heading towards Overlord, the Dinobots were tired after their fight against the Constructicons, the two medics were trapped in a tunnel with drones constantly coming at the only exit, and their largest fighter couldn't get through the force field. Kaon had already made precautions that no Autobot would get through that shield as long as he lived – he would keep the field powered by himself, if that was necessary. His whole frame was made for energy management, after all.

His pet sparkeater growled at Sixshot's direction, and Kaon hushed him. For the past half breem, the phase-sixer was in the same place, on the other side of the space bridge. Traitor or not, Kaon didn't want to provoke him alone. Megatron was coming towards them anyway, revenge could wait until then.

Besides, not even the complete DJD could be as horrifying as their idol when he was angered.

With his right arm completely melted, Sixshot had to rely on his left arm and the hypersonic concussion blaster in that. It was half the firepower he would normally have in robot mode, and laughable compared to his gun-mode's destructive ability... but this was all he had, for now.

He noticed Kaon. As fellow Decepticons, in theory he should have left each other alone. That, seemingly, was Kaon's intention.

Sixshot was never a believer of gentleman's agreement among Decepticons. And besides: he learned the hard way not to do a half-job.

Even if Kaon sensed the larger mechanism aiming his blaster, he had no time to take cover. Not that it would have helped him the slightest.

The artificial spark convulsed. Optimus was sure that was a reaction of some sort, but he could not tell what it was. Was it a reaction to the pass of one of the Cybertronians who built it? If so, he very much hoped it was not Ratchet. Being cut off the communications felt like a curse to him.

As the elevator rose even higher, he could see Sixshot in tank mode, rolling towards a white turbofox. There was something wrong there. Not with the perhaps-still-a-Decepticon sixchanger, nor with the fragile curve of metal they were on. Perhaps it wasn't even the feral rage of the beast or the calm posture of the much larger vehicle.

The problem was the sparkeater in the turbofox frame. And Optimus couldn't warn Sixshot not to kill its abused animal-shell before making sure his own spark was safe. For some reason Sixshot still didn't fire, so maybe he knew what he was facing.

With perfect timing, the phase-sixer transformed. His right arm was clearly in the wrong position, but with the left, he grabbed the white frame by the tail and he spinned it above his head. Then, on a rather graceless trajectory, the beast crashed into the fortress's artificial spark.

::Now that's what I call the worst case of indigestion!:: It was Rewind's voice.

Despite all his wounds he was not used to, Sixshot smiled under his mask. As long as there were mechs fighting for, his functioning had a reason. It was almost like belonging somewhere, again.

::Can't you give me a happier Furmanism?:: he replied. He almost took it back immediately. He didn't need the archivist cassette to remind him that he can be hurt. Nor did he need 'a whole world of pain'.

::I will tell you when I have one:: it was Steeljaw, this time. ::Can I do less?::

The large, orange spark destabilized. Although the damage to the sparkeater was a lot more obvious and a whole lot more final, the base still felt to be suffering. At least, to Ratchet who was its unwilling creator, the artificial spark felt to be radiating pain. Finally he asked Wheeljack to disrupt the spark's energy support.

"Sure, if you tell me how to put out a spark like this."

Ratchet shook his head.

"That's not a spark. On your right, you can see an unfinished connection panel. Throw away the makeshift cover, and disconnect the thick red and green cables" he told Wheeljack. "Wait until the last echoes of the spark ease, then switch it back together again."

That wasn't what any mech could do to a living spark, as the racecar / repairsmech pointed out.

"Yes, but that's not a spark. Not a spark as we know, anyway. It is something entirely new."

After ridding the base of the stray sparkeater that threw itself in his way, Sixshot looked back at Kaon's solemn pile of remains. Well and truly he had wiped out the Decepticon Justice Division. If he were a 'Con still, he should be embarrassed. If he were an Autobot, he would have been proud. Instead, he only felt emptiness like after a battle when there wasn't anything for him to do until he was called again.

He looked up at the elevator carrying Optimus to the highest rooms of the command spire. Around that, there were smaller towers and two bridge-like curves that might have been used for transport. Above them – only the spire with the dark space as background. If the Prime reaches that level, there wouldn't be escape for him.

Sixshot looked back again at the last Division member, and he had an idea.

The lines of the drones changed. Instead of the half-programmed battle types, the ones that made this ragtag army were clearly construction drones with only minimal weaponry and zero knowledge of strategy or tactics. The only function they currently fulfilled was preventing the Dinobots from causing more damage to the base, as they could not leave the still paralyzed Ratchet alone with Wheeljack who couldn't repair him under heavy fire. The inventor also supposed that Megatron didn't want to leave the fortress in enemy hands with functional maintenance drones.

Scrapper also came to this conclusion, but as usual, he didn't feel like arguing about it. Maybe if Devastator were still of some use, he could have shared his impression with his bonded team. Now he shared a knowing nod with Scavenger, and they continued their work on Hook's cranial combining port.

Next to them, Mixmaster was holding a welder and a cracked arm, the later still attached to Megatron. The Decepticon leader was sitting there silently, relying on his anger to suppress the pain. His wounds were similar to those he inflicted on Optimus. They were wearing prints of fists and boots all over their chassis, and both their ruptures on one side originated from the same fall from the dome. Only, while Prime's communicator was broken, Megatron had lost his helmet. It must have been under the debris somewhere.

Scavenger took a look at the current state of their great work, and wondered if all that effort was worth it at all. Four towers, including the space bridge portal and the main support line of the artificial spark, were in ruins. The incomplete maintenance tunnel that was to connect the landing platform and the spark suffered the worst damage: the absolutely destroyed tunnel entrance was buried under the layer of drone corpses. (How typical! Megatron told them to construct the station but he didn't bother with the security. These must have been low quality production line scrap leftovers from the times of the Quintessons.)

As he kept looking, Scavenger spotted Sixshot in a badly mistransformed pistol mode. This would have been bad enough, but the laser-propelled gun was floating towards the command room of the highest spire, the only thing on the base Scavenger was truly proud of.

Optimus watched as Sixshot crashed through a transparasteel window above his head, half-transformed and shouting warnings. He understood the situation even without his comm link, and before the elevator's door opened he was already holding his laser rifle.

Not that he had time to use it before Overlord hit him on his already-ruptured elbow with a vicious sneer. Just an astrosecond later, however, the blue and grey phase-sixer fell gracelessly through the elevator's hatch, thanks to Sixshot's white fist in his helm.

"Try to talk the base into cooperating!" the remaining destroyer shouted back before jumping after his former colleague. "Tell it about our agreement!"

With that, he followed Overlord in his least flight-capable mode: the offroader.

"Me Snarl bored with drones."

"Me Slag too."

"Then why don't you just cut a way through their lines?" Wheeljack replied sarcastically. He was done with one arm. Three more limbs and two other transformation cogs were left before Ratchet could transform and roll with them. So far he had only enabled enough for Ratchet to be able to shoot. What an evil irony of fate – the good doctor couldn't even walk, but he could have killed already.

"Me Sludge like idea."

"Dinobots go!" Grimlock shouted.

Before Wheeljack could have as much as looked up, all five were in dinosaur modes, marching through the drones as if they weren't there.

"Looks like you will have to carry me" Ratchet pointed out. "Or else we would be left behind."

"It was your idea to get your arm ready first!" Wheeljack shot back.

"I told you to reactivate the secondary abridging circuits, but no, you wouldn't listen, for once in your life span you had to be thorough and piece together my wrist connections first!"

"Ratchet, until you get better, I am your medic. No criticism, understood?"

"What have I done to deserve this?"

Overlord was holding a mistransformed Sixshot in his hands, twisting him into a position that some might call artistic in an abstract way. In return the sixchanger bit his elbow with the wolf-fangs, and when that didn't help, he tried shooting him with what remained of his tank mode's weaponry. He scored an unexpected hit in the ankle, but at the same time, Overlord shattered the white facemask. Sixshot cursed with his now-visible mouth, feeling slightly betrayed as he realized ununtrium could break ununtrium. But then, at a whim, he cast a worried look at his fused double joint in his shoulder, as if it was still in pain. The wing-arm-chest connection points looked convincingly sensitive after an otherwise innocent hit, and the half-strategist-half-sadist was seeking an opportunity to hit Sixshot right in the still-hurting wound again. Not even an outstander could have failed to notice the older mech's pain, and Sixshot counted on the torturer to give his shoulder one more blow.

And he was right. It was anything but painless, and Sixshot didn't have to fake his reaction to it, but ununtrium still could break ununtrium and the sixformer was finally free of his fused arm. He could feel the many shards in his shoulder as he moved it, but now at least he got his range of motion back. With a little energizing and perhaps a tasty cube of cybertronuim, Sixshot was sure the limb could be now repaired. His shoulder's ununtrium coating was gone for good, however.

Overlord took advantage of the other's urgent self-diagnostics, and stepped a few metrics back to get enough space for firing his built-in weapons. He had time for two blasts, both of which Sixshot avoided. Then, transforming to beast mode during the jump, the sixchanger kicked off from the metallic floor under them (it used to be a proudly shining spire in an earlier life, only few minutes ago) and the wolf-fangs aimed for Overlord's jet-mode joints that might have been less exposed to the ununtrium treatment.

His wolf-mouth was filled with superheavymetal filings, and when Overlord managed to sweep him off for an astrosecond, he swapped to the maskless robot head, and spit the sprinkles back. Hun-Gurr would have done the same.

Some of the shavings hit Overlord in the right optic, other pieces wedged in under the blue helmet. Then the wolf attacked again, aiming for the mouth, sliding his upper fangs between Overlord's lips. The blue mech cried in pain as predator dentures closed on his jaw. He had time for one more shot before Sixshot clawed out his bolt masher from his abdomen with his left paw.

That one last blow of the built-in artillery had hit the tower behind Sixshot's back. From the sparking wires both could guess that they have started some kind of chain reaction.

For an astrosecond, Optimus Prime stared down at the open side of the elevator, watching the two phase-sixers' battle. First he assumed that there was a deep and ancient enmity between them. But he could not ignore the fact that Sixshot had been imprisoned for over a week, so he must have been full of excess energy and unsated desire to kill.

Or maybe he really was serious about their agreement, even if it meant finishing off his colleague.

But there was no time for such analytics and guesses. He could ask Prowl later. Now he had to make contact with the Planet-Destroying Fortress's barely detectable consciousness, and convince it (him?) to switch off the barrier. He had to find a way to explain that being a tool of destruction wasn't the only way for one to exist. As he connected to the main console of the fortress, he looked out at the phase-sixers battling on a nearby structure. He was collecting his thoughts for the discussion when Overlord's last blast hit the cables that directly connected the command room to the artificial spark.

Already linked to the console, he could not back away from the fire-like sensation. He could almost see the orange spark in front of him, and he tried to relax into the presence of this artificial being. He could tell it wasn't exactly the same being he made contact with, not the one Ratchet had effected. No, it was a brand new spark, born in the battle... yet at the same time, it was not a spark at all. It didn't feel like a spark, more like as if it was a bridge to somewhere.

The Matrix glowed brightly in his chest, like a torch in the hand of a speleologist.

::So what have I missed?::

::Ratchet! It's good to hear you again!:: Blaster immediately replied.

::Hi, Ratch. Well, we have a very serious case of injury awaiting your exceptional skills in alt mode surgery::

::Oh no, don't tell me an Autobot got stuck mid-transformation!:: the good doctor replied. ::Admit it, Perceptor, the whole show here roots in you failing to handle a simple cog fragmentation::

::No, we got bored with Bumblebee complaining about his rough leg:: Blaster joyfully replied. ::The birdy is... well, complicated. But I daresay he's the reason of Sixshot being here::

::Okay. So what is the situation with Sixshot being here?:: Ratchet asked. They didn't have time for explanations, honestly.

On board Omega Supreme, Perceptor stared at the monitor of his new spark energy tracker. When they tested it on Earth, it gave wonderfully detailed results. The proximity of either too many robots so close to the main censors or that of the artificial spark must have confused the delicate tool. It was showing more green dots than it was supposed to.

The sixchanger was standing on a fallen tower with the peak resting on the broken space bridge's curve in front of him. Under him, three hics below, were the Constructicons, filing one after the other, surrounding the control tower behind him. A few stories above their heads, in the main room of the intended throne spire, was Optimus Prime, having an audition with the artificial being.

And right behind his back, where Overlord's last shot hit the structure, were electric fires burning through the cables and causing suspicious tiny explosions in the building. The Constructicons must have had no time for proper insulation yet.

Shape this tower was in, they wouldn't have time for that at all.

Optimus was seeing Cybertronian-like silhouettes inside the spark-like presence. The Matrix was glowing brightly within the Prime, as if protecting the Autobot leader's blue spark. By its light, he could see figures in the darkness, as if he had cast those shadows. The largest shade, one who resembled Optimus in frame but Sixshot in size, reached out to grab him. Or was he aiming for the Matrix? Who could tell.

The fire burnt through the cable that connected the artificial spark directly to the consol and indirectly to Optimus, and the Autobot Prime found himself on the floor of the room.

For a moment, he was glad to be back to reality after the nightmarish vision. Had he just seen a reflection of his own self? But as he was trying to understand what he witnessed, he realized a more urgent danger: the tower was about to collapse with him.

He had time to transform, so that his stern cab would take most of the tower's mass. This was the most he could do before the upper half of the command spire fell on his shoulders.

::Priiiime!::

Sixshot did his best to ignore Swoop's panicked call. He was clinging on to Overlord's lower jaw, hopelessly trying to pull it out of its joint. Meanwhile, his opponent was holding him by the wolf-ears. He was not going to let his colleague know how much it hurt. There was no need to tell the tank-plus-jet mechanism that almost one third of the wolf-head was unprotected since the ununtrium coating was dissolved in battle.

But as much as he didn't want to let Overlord know, the laws of physics still applied to them. The wolf's left ear wrung, and finally, it broke. The ununtrium wolf fell, still holding Overlord's jaw between his fangs. The situation brought up bittersweet memories of Sixshot and his mostly destroyed fanclub. How happily Hun-Gurr would have eaten the torn-off part of the enemy!

At the same time, Overlord's wrist gave an odd shriek as it crumbled. The upper part, the Megajet, fell several hics until she finally transformed and flew out of sight. The lower half, the Gigatank, rolled away little more gracefully. Sixshot knew that both parts would be back sooner than he would prefer.

::Drones down, shield down:: Grimlock summed up the results of the command tower's demise. ::We Dinobots see Omega come!::

Indeed. The orange and red Autobot was approaching an opening covered with remains of structures and deactivated drones. He was happy to see Ratchet in person yet again, and he feared to find the medic in a lot worse condition.

::I'm glad to see you too:: Ratchet patted an orange wall. At last, his only movable limb was used for a friendly gesture, not a motion to destroy. ::Thank you for coming after me, everybot::

Sixshot cast a quick look at the half-collapsed tower. Optimus was trapped in there. From what he picked up, the Prime was conscious but he couldn't transform with too much weight on him. For Sixshot this meant he was safe for the moment. For Megatron it meant he had to order the Constructicons to collapse the building properly, so that he could finish the Prime himself. Or what could be even better: he could capture the freedom-preacher alive. That would be the Autobots' utter humiliation. That would be the Decepticons' final victory.

Sixshot knew he had to hurry, but he was more concerned with Overlord. Besides, he still didn't feel like interfering the private business between his former and his new superiors.

::Blaster, can you hear me?::

::You sound less echoing than normal, but otherwise you're clear::

Sixshot touched the edge of his broken mask. The lack of reverberation wasn't an error in Blaster's apparatus.

::The Prime is trapped in the command spire. Don't try to get him out as long as Overlord is alive. Rewind, please pass that ballad on. And tell Cutthroat that I want him to live::

::What are you doing?::

::I will irritate Overlord a little more::

Wheeljack was limping of three wheels as he escorted Sludge to Omega's landing place. The Dinobot was stumbling in robot mode, leaning against the wall.

"Prime no respond" Swoop cried out bitterly.

:"Blaster mentioned his communicator was knocked out" Wheeljack answered. He had to stay calm and get his creation safe as soon as possible. Who knew the maintenance drones had better aim than those meant for fighting? Or maybe the sparkless thing just got too lucky. The Dinobots' brain modules were never their strongest part, but Wheeljack couldn't imagine what damage the shot could cause. But he was certain Sludge would need proper medical care as soon as it's possible.

He heard a loud noise that could not be called music with the best intent, and the drones that were following them suddenly came to a halt.

"Blaster cleaned our way to Omega. Now go, please Sludge, please go on!"

Dizzy and uncoordinated, but not as disabled as the drones in their back, Sludge took few more steps forward. Then he stopped. He looked around, as if to find a reason to carry on. The only motivation in his damaged brain module was that a Dinobot doesn't stop. They storm, they crash, giving up is no option in their mind.

He was barely aware of Grimlock and Slag grabbing him, but at least he didn't resist his teammates when they pulled him inside Omega's hold.

Soon, a grumpy medic's cursing was heard, as Ratchet started working on the Dinobot with his only moving arm. His life-experience told him that a brain damage (damage to any of the cog-brain-spark triad) was always worse than it seemed.

And it seemed bad already.

The blue tank was rolling over a makeshift bridge that connected crooked towers and half-built spires. The latter were meant to be parts of a weapon Overlord was certain he wouldn't live to use. His connected, robotic form was destroyed by a traitor. Least he could do was to make sure Sixshot died before he did.

For that, he needed both the strategist's creativity and the sadist's cold passion. He hoped he still had both in him.

The Gigatank rolled through a bridge that was either a fallen spire or one that was built to be slant for some unperceivable reason. A mostly white and gray and teal tank was following him: Sixshot's only form that was still useful after the loss of his wing, his arm, his mouthplate and half of his wolf-head. The Megajet emerged from behind him, opening fire which the other phase-sixer merely dodged. Then, by the time the fire ceased, the Gigatank disappeared from sight.

::Perceptor, do you hear me? I need your sensors immediately. Find Overlord before he would start taking hostages::

::Give me a moment, Sixshot. Sludge has been hit on the module connection panel, we cannot...::

::Repeat:: Sixshot demanded.

::Ratchet just diagnosed Sludge with a blasted brain module connection panel. If we don't figure out how to abridge the damage, we lose him, and we only have about...::

::One joor for that:: Sixshot finished the sentence. Six Earth hours, before the separation of his triad destroys the other two essential components. That was the same mode of action a superspark's first green flash would initiate. One of Rossum's favorite topics.

::He is a primitive:: Sixshot pointed out. ::His kind defies laws of our biology. Let Ratchet handle that, and find me Overlord before he finds you. I suppose now he appears on your monitor as two half-sparks. I need the coordinates of both::

::Ratchet's field-optimized tools and portable scanners are broken. Besides, the artificial spark is jamming my sensors::

Sixshot widened the range of his radio signal, switching to the communication channel Omega Supreme and the Dinobots used.

::Take him to Big D. He can help Sludge and you will be out of Overlord's range there::

And hopefully from there Perceptor would be able to locate the two half-sparks. If the tool was developed with his unintended help, Sixshot at least expected it to be of some use in this battle. He needed every help he could get against Overlord.

::We can't leave Optimus here!:: Ratchet replied.

::Your Prime is safe under the debris, and the Constructicons won't reactivate the shield anytime now:: Sixshot argued. He spotted the Megajet's shadow on a spire. The two-in-one psychopath was searching for a place from where he could fire at the trapped Optimus with both components. And what if he can't get there before the other tank? He needed a distraction. While still listening to the Autobot channel and hearing Grimlock take command on board the ship (unlike the others, he was willing to leave one mech behind if that meant saving another Dinobot's life) he switched to another frequency, one that the Decepticon high command preferred to use. He caught the last words of Megatron instructing Overlord to stay on target and destroy Optimus Prime as soon as he could.

That won't happen, Sixshot decided. He had already lost one Prime he served under, he won't let this one down. He spoke on the Decepticon channel.

::Where are you, lunatic? I heard the first thing that ever happened to your spark was Primus kicking your aft::

The Megajet spinned around. The Gigatank, wherever it happened to be, also turned around and aimed his cannon at the other phase-sixer.

Sixshot's tank-shield hid the smile his mask no longer could have. Everyone could be driven insane with a well-aimed insult. Ever since his spark was uncovered on Cybertron's second moon, Overlord was trying to prove himself.

Now he was proving himself to be just as easily distracted from a fight as anybody else, even if he had his hands full.

The truck form had saved Optimus Prime from the falling pieces of construction, but he could not transform back to his robot mode. Who knew the artificial gravity of a space station could be this strong? He didn't put it behind the Constructicons to have increased the gravity pull just to make his life miserable. The up side of it could be that the builders couldn't merge into Devastator under these conditions. The gestalt's connection ports weren't the strongest in normal conditions, so they probably won't get to him soon. He would just have to wait. Take a rest if he can, he might need those last ounces of his strength. The fight could continue any moment.

But then, through the tons of ruins he was trapped under, he heard the sound of Omega Supreme's engines as he took off from the fortress. He wondered how could his Autobots leave him behind. Hopefully they didn't think he was dead, did they? If only his communicator were operational.

He was left behind on a Decepticon fortress and he could not communicate with anymore. There were the Constructicons below him, unbuilding the tower. Megatron was also out there. And he would have to survive the fire of the brutal Overlord, who seemed to be in a better condition than he should have been.

Overlord's spark was special for more than one reason. When a spark of their green type is brought to life, its first flare lethally disrupts the triad connection of any mechanism standing by. But Overlord's birth caused the deaths of not one but two bystanders, and this has left its mark on him. The spark split in two before it was placed in a frame. The stronger male spark acquired the lower half of the body, the unpredictable and cunning female spark embedded herself in the upper half. As a robot, Overlord functioned like any other phase-sixer would, though the female characteristics (and possibly his primitive traits) made him more rebellious than Rossum would have liked.

Thinking back, Rossum's death was the first time Sixshot should have gotten suspicious. According to Shockwave (and the cyclopic scientist never lied to them) Megatron was present and he could have held Overlord back. Instead, he was just laughing.

Now, hundreds of thousands of vorns later, Sixshot was under fire of the Gigatank, and he was trying to figure out how to kill the unkillable. Certainly, best would be if he could just shoot one part and it would start a chain reaction that would also kill the other, but he doubted it would be that easy. What if the shot spark could restabilize while he was busy with the other? He had heard of quantum-bonds between a truck and his trailer doing a very similar trick.

The Megajet was cruising above his head, then dropped almost to Sixshot's optic level. She seemingly overshot him, but the blasts hit the tower behind the grounded phase-sixer. He refused to fall for the trick and didn't turn around to see the damage. Instead, he focused all his strength into a blast at the panels where the Megajet could fuse with the Gigatank. That had to be her weak spot, and Sixshot was certain that a direct hit would give him the upper hand. Only, she was too fast for the tank-trapped sixformer to be targeted properly. She flew away, almost as if insulted by the miserable attempt.

Now with only half of Overlord focusing on him, Sixshot transformed and cast a quick glance at Optimus's unintended hiding place. He gestured an arc to the sky, pointing at Messatine, then back. Whether the Prime understood or not, he had no time to find out. The Megajet was back, firing at him intensely. Sixshot scored a good hit at the Gigatank, but he knew he wouldn't last long in the crossfire.

Perceptor pointed at the green dot on his screen, and Blaster immediately made contact.

::Six, Rewind wants to tell you a furmanism::

How nice that he will remind me of not having to live with the knowledge that he ran, Sixshot grumbled. There really wasn't much else the little cassette could do for him, or so he thought.

::A vast, predatory bird!:: the little one rejoiced. "A vast, predatory bird!::

::At last!:: Sixshot sighed. ::What took him so long?::

A hit that should have normally been blocked by his destroyed right arm prevented him from hearing the reply, but he didn't really care anyway. He had found the hope with which he could fire with all his might, with which he could carry on the fight.

::So where is your double-size ego, Overlord?:: he aired. ::Did I cut back on your face when I made you remember you can be hurt?::

He dodged yet another blast of the Megajet. He could see how cracked her frame was and how she couldn't fly straight. By contrast, there weren't many visible wounds on the Gigatank, but from the intensity and rhythm of his attacks he could tell the other tank was in a bad condition. Grimlock did a good job on him.

The two halves, however, were still in a better shape than the sixformer who couldn't take most of his alts. And both were aware of that.

::You will die screaming, Sixshot! You so brilliant tactician, tell me what good is two against one!::

Oh, the irony. Sixshot could already see the familiar black shape approaching.

::With pleasure!:: he cried out, focusing his attention and his tank mode's firepower on the Megajet. For the already wounded upper half, there was no escape.

At the same time, the newcomer opened fire at the Gigatank, blasting him to several tiny pieces. His fire was just as merciless as anyone else's of his type, and just as powerful.

"Well, that's what happens to a lunatic who doesn't check if there's a phase-sixer behind them" he laughed as he landed next to his colleague. "Uhm, Sixshot? Am I the only one here who can care for his limbs?"

"Shut up, Blackshadow, and tell me where have you been when I needed you."

Choosing to follow the first request rather than the second, the large black and red phase-sixer shrugged his wings and helped up his fellow warrior.

Sixshot's body was a fine example of the thesis "ununtrium breaks ununtrium". Blackshadow could see his mouth through the hole in his mask. Several tiny scratches decorated his chest-wings, and the newcomer wasn't sure if he didn't see the green glow of a spark under the teal armor. The right side of his chest was melted and his double shoulder joint was crushed. His right arm was missing, although Blackshadow would have bet he had seen it somewhere in the debris under them.

But all in all, the phase-sixer was radiating pride and happiness. He had finished a really nasty enemy today. He turned around, only to see four Constructicons intensely demolishing the tower in which the Prime was trapped.

"It is not over yet" he murmured. Since he couldn't fly in his spaceship mode without his wing, he had to resolve to flying in his laser-propelled gun form. Without his arm to collect and focus energy to the barrel, that mode wasn't able to shoot at the moment. But it sufficed for a short flight.

Perceptor and Wheeljack were working in the empty hospital's spacious repair room. It still felt as if the place was haunted, despite they knew it was an abandoned but alive hospital.

Next to them, Ratchet was reading a data stack in his functioning arm while he was waiting for his freshly replaced scanners to install.

"Well, this here says Sludge's abridger is loose. If we connect that directly to the cosmitron, we could gain time to find a matching brain module connection panel."

"We already have found that" Wheeljack replied. "When Big D was attacked, he jettisoned his living patients through the space bridge, but he didn't have time to bother with those already dead. Perceptor is already cleaning the graft."

Ratchet was about to comment on the inventor and the microscope not consulting with their superior medical officer, but loud cursing over the Autobot radio frequency disrupted the debate.

::Oh, no!::

::Fraggin' scrappin' no!::

Both Sixshot and Blaster were, from opposite directions, staring at the reactivated rainbow barrier that trapped Optimus and the wounded phase-sixer at the Decepticon base. Sixshot was especially angry with himself because sending the Autobots away was his idea and he usually didn't underestimate defense systems this badly. The Constructicons must have built a second command center somewhere on the base. And it was up to him to help the trapped Prime.

He may have been wounded, but he wasn't out of tricks yet.

Scavenger was crampooning the materials out of the tower they built with so many orns' hard and tedious work. So was this what his best efforts were worth? He was a builder by nature, he wanted to leave useful and lasting constructs behind... but obviously not in enemy hands, and definitely not against Megatron's orders.

He pushed his shovel against the wall, then retreated when he spotted a large and armed offroader vehicle rolling menacingly towards him. He transformed and stepped away from the tower, his body language making it clear that he didn't want to end as fast-forgotten collateral casualty.

Hook was standing knee-deep in ruins and metallic shavings. What a terribly humiliating task for a master builder to bring down a tower just because there was an enemy truck somewhere on the higher levels. Megatron really should have waited for him to handle the stray Prime a more civilized way.

He cast a disdaining look at the debris around them. He transformed, and with great disgust he leveled his crane's elaborate and usually shining clean hook to pick Megatron's lost helmet out from the mess. He sure as the Pit won't be the one to clear it for his leader, he decided. Then he looked up at the white and dark gray spaceship that cast its shadow on the perfectionist Decepticon.

Mixmaster was analyzing the metal that fell from the collapsed upper half of the tower, wondering if they could have made a better structure that would have fared better against the two phase-sixers shooting in its proximity. If Sixshot would get away from this battle (and why wouldn't he? He was meant to survive the destruction he caused) the Decepticons would need new materials that could withstand fury and fire of the phase-sixer.

As he transformed to his mixer mode, he heard a strange growl. It wasn't that of his engine. Rather, it belonged to a white-headed ununtrium wolf with red optics and two brilliant white wings folded neatly on his back. He decided he would continue his chemical analysis sometime later.

Bonecrusher, for one, was happy to destroy. The tower they built had been stained by the Autobot anyway, and the Constructicons could build a better spire anytime. He unleashed his destructive power on the tower, expecting it to collapse anytime. Then the Autobot leader would be theirs. Whatever Megatron had in mind for his lifelong enemy, it was certain to worth the labor in it.

But when he looked up from his work for just a moment, he saw a huge white and dark gray tank coming towards him at a discouraging speed. Reluctantly, he abandoned his task and hoped Megatron would be here soon.

Because he was a dump truck and not a warrior by design, Long Haul had missed most of the battle yet again. After the Autobot spaceship left with the former prisoner, and they reactivated the colorful shield of the fortress, Megatron had ordered them to bring down the main tower. He was happy to comply. He might have missed the battle, but he surely won't miss the fun the new prisoner was going to supply. They already disassembled Optimus Prime once, and he would happily do that again.

Suddenly he found himself on the wrong end of an extremely large gun.

"Hey, this must be a hologram! Sixshot has hologram replicas of himself, remember?"

Nevertheless, he backed towards the tower, hoping that Sixshot wouldn't blast him if his death would also bring down the tower he was defending.

"You're shivering" Mixmaster pointed out.

Blackshadow was sitting on the arc of a crooked spire, hanging his legs. He watched from the height of three and a half hics as Scrapper ran to Megatron in panic while the other five had been baffled to a corner. Beautiful scene, he inwardly giggled. Old Buckethead had royally pissed up his formerly loyal Sixshot, and he surprisingly didn't like the consequences that came in the form of Autobots running down his newly constructed base and the death of his secret favorite lunatic Overlord. In fact, the Decepticon forces now looked almost as if they would have needed help.

He looked down at the opposing parties from his perch, amused by the situation. Clearly, Megatron had forgotten to include an _on_-switch in him. Under any other circumstances he might have interfered, but this time he had a very good offer for which all he was compelled to do was to wait until the Autobot party wins this battle.

The big grey gunformer arrived to the tower after having activated the colorful barrier from a better defended station. He wished he could have done so while Omega Supreme was still inside, it would have been a dangerous gambit, but if the Autobots were in such a hurry, he instinctively knew that making them stay would have gained more for the Decepticons in the long term. But now, he had unfinished business with a phase-sixer.

Sixshot, the real one, was hanging on the outside of the tower, holding on to the ruins with his wolf-claws, tearing through the wreckage with his fangs. With all the engines he still had, he was fighting the increased gravity that was pulling down both him and the ruined structure. He put every single screw he possessed to the task of freeing Optimus Prime. Despite all the damage, his frame was flexible and his every little part functioned as he could hope. This had to be the effect of the cybertronium he abundantly consumed. He had little doubt that the Prime was feeding him exactly because he expected the phase-sixer to work for him in time.

And now, after the death of his rival and perhaps at the end of his own functioning, Sixshot remembered the fear he hadn't yet understood on the Saturn. He refused to become Optimus Prime's weapon. He was a tool of controlled destruction, but not without an own will, and Megatron was the only one he answered. His superior was a weapon himself, their sole purpose was, eventually, identical. Optimus Prime was a completely different being. After all these hundreds of thousands of vorns, he was still a civilian. And Sixshot was not going to become any tool in civilian hands.

At the same time, he also understood why his worst fear evaded him. His subconscious didn't even consider the idea of Megatron sending him to destroy Primus. Why? Because Optimus had possessed his stand-down code and could have prevented the catastrophe. He looked down at the Constructicons, the holograms and Megatron approaching, and continued digging the Prime out from under the debris. He knew he didn't have much time left.

The tower dangerously bent as he pulled a weight-holder from above the red truck, and finally Optimus could raise his head out from the cab. Sixshot couldn't see much of him, but after noticing the asymmetry of the blue helm, he didn't wonder why the communicator didn't work. It was broken down along with the left side of the face-protecting panels. He sent one short message to Blackshadow, then looked down at his former leader, and continued pulling Optimus free.

"Listen, Prime. I have something to ask of you. If Blaster's trick doesn't work... I don't want to be reactivated. This is my explicit request, understood?"

Under them, Megatron cleared his throat.

"What are you doing here?" the Prime whispered.

"Winning the war for you" Sixshot replied.

Then, as if his words were echoed back by all the crooked structures, Megatron's voice filled the base.

"SIXSHOT, RESET. CIDER..."

Sixshot mentally nodded to himself. His assumption was correct, Megatron had indeed got his new stand-down code. The one time when Prowl used it in Prime's absence was enough for Laserbeak to record it.

"...PAGE, SUPERIOR..."

"Oh no"

"EMO DOOR. ENABLE."

Optimus finally freed his right arm with which he desperately reached for the falling Decepticon. He couldn't catch him, of course, all he could see were the red optics turning gray, and Sixshot's last words echoed in his mind, almost begging him not to disappoint.

Megatron looked up, but then it was already too late. With the artificially increased gravity and the many small wounds the Prime inflicted on him, he couldn't react in time.

He couldn't step away from under the unconscious sixformer's falling body.

There was a loud crash, and then... it was over. The holograms disappeared, but so did the Decepticons' pride and courage. As the cloud of dust and metal shards cleared, Megatron's shattered frame became visible under the gestalt-sized Decepticon's lifeless mass.

Scrapper suddenly found himself at Blackshadow's gunpoint.

"I suppose the rainbow barrier is no longer needed" he said, as if kindly reminding the Constructicon leader. "I suggest you show me around here. Nice job on the fortress, by the way."

Scrapper cursed, and complied. He had enough of the phase-six-type for this day. For this life maybe.

The shield disappeared, and Omega Supreme entered the base. He carefully excavated Optimus Prime from the tower that was miraculously still standing, and later he also pulled aside Sixshot's frame to let Perceptor examine Megatron's remains.

"Well? Can I tell the Aerialbots to retreat from the Rigel bridge?" Blaster asked from inside Omega Supreme. "I suppose Starscream can't help out his leader anymore, and Silverbolt's team is losing that battle."

Optimus Prime could finally transform on Omega's giant palm. From what he had seen, Sixshot was true to his word about winning the war for him: Megatron's unhelmed head was broken with only a few wires connecting the base of his brain module to the trunk of his body. There wasn't much energon splashed out on and around his frame, as if he was running on fumes or some unseen other fuel. The crimson red spark was still pulsing inside his chest, seemingly almost intact after the crash.

Megatron was clearly alive after all that was done to him, but it was also obvious that he would need extensive repairs before he could as much as speak again.

Blaster's words brought Optimus back from his dark thoughts.

"Yes, Blaster, please. Tell them that this bridge is in ruins so no Seeker will come through here."

A moment later the old Autobot spaceship nodded.

"Message: transmitted. Rigel V: left in Decepticon hands. Autobots: retreating."

"Thank you. Thanks everyone. Ratchet?"

"He and Wheeljack are in Delphi, performing a brain module connection panel transplantation on Sludge" Perceptor explained as Blaster finally emerged from Omega's hold. "Prowl has yet to confirm it, but we were doing exceptionally well today. No losses."

The blue light in Optimus Prime's optics flickered. As much as he was relieved that all his troops were safe, he could hardly agree with Perceptor's statement. From Megatron's shattered body, he stepped to Sixshot's battle-ruined frame. He rested a hand next to the wounded right shoulder, and watched as the green spark pulsed under the cracked ununtrium shield.

"What are you waiting for, Optimus?" Perceptor urged his leader. "Reactivate him!"

"I... can't. He asked me not to."

"But I..." Blaster started, but he abruptly shut up before anyone would have noticed he opened his mouth.

"He asked me to leave him. His reasons? I can only guess" Optimus whispered, reluctantly turning away from the mech he started to consider more than just a former enemy. "I'm afraid he thought there would be no place for him in a future we are now given a chance to build."

He cast one look at Megatron and at Blaster who was ejecting his cassettes so that they could analyze the Decepticon leader's remains. Despite how much he believed the Autobot cassette team befriended the phase-sixer, they didn't even take a glimpse at him.

It was tempting that he could have turned around and waken Sixshot from his induced shutdown. At the same time, he caught a quiet giggle from Rewind, and reconsidered. He couldn't blame Sixshot for his decision. Perhaps there was truly no place for him.

"No, I just wanted to see if you allowed me to decide, of you just considered me a property you gained" an overly familiar voice came from behind the Prime's back. Rewind and Eject turned immediately to Optimus, not willing to miss his reaction to Sixshot sitting up behind him. "Though I have to admit I was hoping for a slightly longer necrologue..." Sixshot continued. The hole in his mask revealed some of his shy smile. He winked at Blaster, whose team was willing to play along.

"You faker" the Prime happily cried, then threw his arms around the wounded large mech.

"Decepticon: one who deceives."

The Autobots at once turned towards Blackshadow who just emerged from the secondary control room with Scrapper by his side. Perceptor and Omega Supreme immediately aimed their weapons towards them. The large orange shipformer was especially enthusiastic about finishing old business with the Constructicon leader.

"Omega, don't" Optimus stepped between the newcomer Autobots and the two Decepticons. "We want peace, and for that, first of all we need survivors on both sides. Blackshadow, I'm pleased to see you so soon. I guess our agreement still holds."

The large flier ignored the cannons trained at him. He easily could: his ununtrium armor was not even bent in the fight during which Sixshot was ruined and Overlord died.

"I look around here, Prime, and I start to think it's you who bring destruction wherever you go, not me. But yes, you made a magnanimous offer I find hard to resist."

Leaving the Constructicon leader, Blackshadow knelt down where Blaster was squatting. With badly veiled excitement and anticipation, he pointed at what remained of Megatron's databanks.

"You will erase everything he ever had about me. Without reading."

Blaster looked up at his superior. For once, Optimus seemed unsure. Perceptor was rapidly shaking his head in the background.

"I say 'please' because he won't" Sixshot said. Then he looked at his black and red colleague, and reminded him this was not in the agreement he mediated between Optimus and his fellow phase-sixer.

"I won't let this chance slip" Blackshadow replied. Scrapper murmured something, to which Optimus replied is a quiet but unbending tone.

At Megatron's broken head, Blaster found a plug-in and started to work. The ununtrium-coated jetformer, the only one with no battle wounds from the fight, watched him silently, as if he could also detect what was going on in Megatron's helmless mind.

"Optimus: idealist" Omega Supreme stated. "Scrapper: already betrayed me once."

"You don't know half of their story with Megatron" Sixshot interrupted. "He is the Constructicons' creation just as much as the Constructicons are his. Given time and equipment, they will rebuild him as good as new."

"If Prime allows it" Perceptor pointed out.

"Prime will allow it" Sixshot replied calmly. He blinked at the Autobot leader to whom he offered his complete trust. "Omega, remember: There is always something in friends who turned enemies. Unlike in friends who had been killed."

With that, he transformed to his tank mode as it was the least damaged. He would need to call in a few favors too, and he wondered what Delphi will react to such request. He wanted to look as good as new, so that his to-be enemies wouldn't know where his frame lacked the indestructible coating.

"Anyway, would someone care tell me what's going on?" Perceptor demanded. "I feel as if I missed something."

If a tank could cast a grateful look, Sixshot did that towards the Autobot communication officer.

"I assumed that Megatron had my new code, so I asked Blaster to change it once again. It happened just before we boarded my worldsweeper. You see, this was why I slept through most of the journey here. I was rearranging my program lines after the hacking."

"And what is Blackshadow doing here?" Perceptor continued. "Not that I would mind him not doing anything..."

"Exactly" the jetformer smiled. "Knowing when to do nothing is the key to financial success." He might have intended to continue, but Blaster interrupted him with a disgusted sound as he detached himself from Megatron's damaged brain.

"Ugh. I've done what I could, Blackshadow. But I remind you, Starscream and the two 'Waves are still around."

"I am not worried about them" Blackshadow stated. "I just don't want him to remember ever owning me. Now, my end of the bargain."

With that, the black robot ceremoniously crossed his arms, and placed his lower arm's sharpest edges against the two purple markings on his shoulders. There was a loud screech as ununtrium scraped ununtrium.

Two shiny deltoids remained where Decepticon insignias used to be, and Blackshadow shook off the remains of the purple marks with disgust.

"How goes your motto, Prime? The freedom one. I haven't heard it enough."

"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings."

"I love the sound of that. Now, off my base. I will need to clean up, you were horrible guests."

Sixshot transformed to robot mode.

"That's his way of being thankful" he said, deciding a retracted mask can't look as bad as one with a hole in it. "Blaster, when you're ready, I also want a little favor from you."

"I guess I know what you want. One moment, and I can get to it."

::Fellow Decepticons! Before I say more to you, I would like us all to remember the Decepticon Justice Division. They were five extraordinary Decepticons, they were! They showed an example of loyalty in a way Megatron envisioned it. I say, we should always honor their memory.

But now, fellow warriors, we are left without their guidance, and with new decisions to make. Megatron is currently in an Autobot medical facility after making a mistake that would have put Starscream to shame. He is so damaged he won't be able to lead us for the foreseeable future. Blackshadow declared neutrality, Overlord has been killed. Decepticons! We are now on our own to decide. We are given the opportunity to choose true strength and unity once more, and accept a Prime's lead. You can follow my example, and let Primus's chosen guide us to a world we have yet to build. Or, you can choose to follow the Decepticon command chain, in which case Megatron's second in command is awaiting your assistance on Rigel V. Choose Starscream's leadership, if that is what you want. I'm certain he will be grateful of your help::

Sixshot blinked at Steeljaw, who perfectly understood the 'end of transmission' signal, and curled into his cassette form to fit into Blaster's chest again. Next to them, the Constructicons already started rearranging the Decepticon leader's broken and twisted parts. Perceptor and Omega Supreme were keeping their sensors in him.

A little further Optimus and Blackshadow were talking about minor details of the fortress's change of ownership, the latter repeatedly pointing out that the Autobots wouldn't have even allowed the base to be constructed, if it would have been up to them.

"She will be treasured, rest assured, Prime" Blackshadow smiled, and he meant it. "You, Six! I know you too well. Are you serious about honoring the DJD's memory? Because that can mean only one thing."

"They were at the wrong place at the wrong time" Sixshot replied, avoiding a direct answer.

Blackshadow shook his head.

"Busybody sixformer. I don't think I would have bothered with them unless somebody properly paid me for that."

Sixshot laughed, and turned to Optimus Prime.

"Thank you for your help, Sixshot. And... for your faith in me. I will try to live up to your expectations. Before I forget, Ratchet is expecting you."

Scrapper transformed behind Blackshadow, and rolled closer to Prime. He spoke for his whole team.

"Sirs? Are you certain about sides? Because I... I mean, we, don't want to serve under Starscream."

"And there's a lot on Cybertron to reconstruct" Hook pointed out.

"You're not going anywhere until this base is rebuilt" Blackshadow reminded them.

"He has a point" Sixshot interrupted. "And I'm certain he will generously pay you for recreating this base after we have left."

If a phase-sixer's look could have killed, Sixshot would have been dead. But Blackshadow saw no point in arguing his kin in front of an audience.

Blaster picked up an incoming signal.

"From Cybertron" he commented. He transformed into his radio mode, and let Elita-One speak.

Optimus was the first to congratulate his female partner, she was the first to be openly relieved to hear him after his comm link was undone. Optimus quickly summed up the day's events to his female partner, Elita told him how Jazz lead Firestar's team against Shockwave's drones and how Ironhide and Chromia advanced as far as the space bridge. Optimus told her how glad he was to hear she didn't have to use her special, time-stopping ability.

Later Soundwave requested to speak with the Prime, offering anything he could in exchange for his broken leader. This is loyalty, Sixshot thought. Any other Decepticon would have taken the opportunity to get rid of his leader instead. Optimus did not ask for constructs of strategic importance, anyone being handed over to them, nor scientific data that could have turned into the next weapon of tomorrow. Instead, he replied that he needed Soundwave's abilities to convince Cybertronians of both factions to quit the war and give peace a chance. He was aware how the Decepticons tended to comply with the monotone blue spymaster's direct requests, but admitted that convincing some of them (here he pointed at Megatron) would not be easy. Soundwave accepted the challenge.

As he was listening to these discussions, Sixshot boarded Omega Supreme for the hike to Delphi. He reconsidered the weapon-mode fear once again. He had a special spark, yes, he wouldn't have been a phase-sixer without that. But he guessed Prime's female counterpart to be a whitesparker. She could stop time if she wanted to – eons have passed since scientists gave up the hope of understanding that phenomenon. Compared to her extremely rare spark, he and Blackshadow didn't even count as uncommon.

The black jetformer was looking around the fortress, first time as its owner. It wouldn't be in ruins for long, and it was a quite favorable trade in exchange of him being a Decepticon. Now he was free like a bird, and a proud owner of a space station that could blow up anything that came too close.

"I think I will rename her. I will call her Deadly Rainbows. What do you think?"


	7. Phase 7

**Phase seven – repopulating Cybertron**

A fire-colored metallic turul bird was flying through the upmost buildings of Vos. He passed King Starscream's palace, and landed on the balcony of the most luxurious apartment next to it. He transformed and stepped inside.

He was in the largest and most comfortable living-room he could ever dream about. There were comfortable chairs and an energon jacuzzi, as well as a fascinating collection of blade weapons from all around the known galaxy.

"Szia!" he greeted the black and red host.

"Good to see you, Cutthroat. Where's the looser you're still hanging with?"

As if to answer the question, a large white and teal and dark grey spaceship landed on the balcony. He transformed and greeted Blackshadow whom he didn't see for almost a whole year.

"How's business going, Blackest? I hear you could finally afford this little flatlet. Good choice. But I thought you decided to live on the Rainbows?"

"The Deadly Rainbows is a vault, not a place to live" Blackshadow explained. "Besides, I'm Cybertronian. First I considered buying an estate in all five cities, but then I reconsidered. You know, I'm not nostalgy-struck, nor am I Decepticon. I hear you settled for Iacon, grand negotiator Sixshot?"

"Don't call me grand negotiator. I'm not one yet" the white-headed visitor said.

"Excuse me?"

"I said I'm not a grand negotiator."

"No, I heard something else" Blackshadow stated, suspiciously.

"I need two more cases before I would be even considered. And I think one of those would be a mission with quintessons involved. Hey don't look at me like that! It is called the test of impartiality. A simple negotiator can turn down cases he doesn't want to deal with, a grand negotiator is, by contrast, the professional level who can be counted on in any situations. I won't settle for less than that."

The black jetformer commented on Sixshot never being a perfectly sane machine, then he started talking about the Monacusian Sunbow Bank that first hired him to deal with a robber gang not much before Overlord's demise, then he got to show an example with them and soon he was offered a contract to be the exclusive hunter of the financial institution.

"Loon told me he wanted the company's property guarded as if it was mine. I said, all right, that isn't a thing I cannot imagine. He offered me twenty-five percent share, I said thirty, we agreed on twenty-seven. There were three robberies in the last year, none of them got away from me. None. And I can go and assassinate anyone in my free time, if I am paid well enough. Just like in the good old days, but with fame and ununtrium added."

Now it was Sixshot's turn to say something about how he spent his time since they last met. He was obviously proud of his new position as a representative in the Galactic Council, and he was not yet bored with the many enemies who thought this would be their chance of a payback. If it interfered with his negotiating tasks, it only made him enjoy the situation even more.

"I only realized in the middle of the second round of hearings that the quintessons had already bribed both parties to kill me before I arrived. This made the entire kalkar versus ravenous peacemaking a lot more interesting." But before he could have gone into the details, Cutthroat transformed and took off, only to land on one of the most expensive-looking sabres on the wall.

"Azonnal gyere le onnan!" Sixshot shouted at him, trying to shoo Cutthroat off the electrum- sword. "I'm sorry, I don't know why but he keeps perching on swords ever since he was rebuilt."

"Perhaps because that's what turuls do?" Blackshadow guessed. He was more interested in his former colleague than in his pet bird-of-prey, so he urged the sixformer to go on.

"Just imagine" the visitor continued. "I had to keep the ravenoi and the kalkars from tearing each other apart during the listenings, while they were both busy offlining me behind each other's back."

Blackshadow smiled at his fellow warmachine's cheerful tone. The weapon that was nothing but a tool of destruction in Megatron's hand, had lately discovered his other abilities, and he became a proud negotiator under the Prime's command. Sometimes even Sixshot could make a wise decision. Rarely.

"Before I forget to ask. Have you heard that your trick at Gernion was nominated for the cheekiest action of the year?"

"I didn't know there was such contest" Sixshot admitted.

"Contest? A prize. And you can't imagine the merchandise around it. You could be a millionaire just with that. Which reminds me, have you already copyrighted your new motto? You should, before someone else does it."

"My new motto?"

Cutthroat flapped his wings while holding on to the sword, just like a hatchling yet too shy to fly.

"Szerintem arra gondol, hogy 'I'm not here on Council business. I heard you are about to eliminate each other, so I decided to come and offer you a hand with that.' Hangzatos, az biztos."

"Hangzatos?" Blackshadow echoed.

"Well, it usually works. It's a lot easier to work with delegates who _want _to prove themselves capable of making compromises. But if they still want to resolve their border disputes with heavy artillery, it is their choice. What are you looking at?"

"Your enthusiasm. Who knew that you would end up on the other side of warmaking?"

"Megatron biztos, hogy nem" Cutthroat laughed.

"Certainly not" Sixshot giggled. "You should have seen his face when I was officially appointed to the League of Negotiators. I was given the beacon an all... not that I would ever need it, but it's a trophy of some sort."

"A beacon?" Blackshadow stared.

"Yes, the extraction beacon, with the compulsory large red button." With that, he turned his wrist to his colleague and revealed the tracker recently mounted under his armor. Where Blackshadow had a 'Never ask for last words' reminder, Sixshot was carrying a large red thing which was, according to researchers, tempting for most organics to touch. "Extraction beacon signals the negotiator needs to be extracted from a situation. That was how the rescue at Gernion started."

Blackshadow urged him to speak. He had to hear the story from first hand. Sixshot complied.

"Professor Raisylar is one of the most honored members of the League. But even he overstepped and the locals sentenced him for arena execution. Imagine an open stadium with seats around and under the perfectly transparent center. The crowd was promised to see something very special for poor old Professor. A rare and extremely dangerous beast."

"And didn't they get it?"

"In a way... I picked up his extraction signal, and followed it to the stadium. Finding him wasn't a hard task from there. I landed in the middle of the arena, I rolled a lap of honor around in all my forms. I never saw a crowd like that! Pure enthusiasm."

"And then you transformed for space travel, picked Raisylar up, and left the execution scene."

"Exactly. No need to overcomplicate an execution, now was there?"


End file.
